Plato's Cave
by DarkStorm3
Summary: An ancient fable takes on new meaning as a young woman steps over the threshold of her world.
1. The Cave

This is a repost of my original story. I'd had some trouble updating it lately- I'd been working on it on and off since August 2003- so I decided to just scrap the whole thing from the site and repost it all in a slightly more proofread version. Speaking of which…those who have read this story in the past will have noticed my occasional error. Because of this, I am asking for a beta reader for this story from this site. Please email me if you're interested.

'_Philosophy 337: Mid-term Essay Notes_

_Synopsis of Plato's Cave Plato's Republic:'_

'_Say you had a group of people, chained up in a cave since early childhood. The chains are such that they cannot move their arms or legs, nor turn there heads all the way around. _

'_In this cave, behind these prisoners, is a fire. An overseer, a puppetmaster, uses this to cast shadows on the wall in front of the prisoners, sometimes making sounds to accompany them, sometimes silent._

'_The prisoners come to believe that these shadows are all there is of the world. After all, they have never seen daylight, never seen their keeper(s); they cannot even stand or turn their heads, so how can they imagine a world beyond the cave?_

_However._

'_What if a prisoner escaped?'_

'_What if that prisoner could suddenly stand, and (probably not willingly) leave the dark cave that had been their whole world, could ripped away whatever veil prevented them from knowing the truth?' _

'_How would that prisoner react? (S)He would likely be dazzled, that's not a question. But how would the person deal with this new knowledge?'_

'_Would he try to disappear into this new world?'_

'_Would he try to go back to that old life of shadow images, though he has seen trees and grass, and has felt the sun on his face?'_

'_Or would he try, perhaps unsuccessfully, to convince the other prisoners of the world outside? Plato says that such a person would be killed if they tried to go back for others. _

'_Maybe by the overseer, trying to save the façade. Perhaps even by the other prisoners, out of fear upon hearing the incredible tale about the world outside.'_

'_After all, how can you tell the difference between shadows and reality when you've never seen the truth?'_

I stopped typing, looked over what I had just wrote. I hadn't wanted to do Plato, but the topics had been assigned, and this was worth a pretty large chunk of the course. But now I was enthralled. This idea of the cave…I don't know what it was, but it was caught in my mind like a thorn.

A month ago, I was downtown, sitting in one of those outdoor cafes. I was trying to catch up on my readings, and cursing the day that I had decided to take on a philosophy minor, especially since I'm a comp. science major. I suppose I wanted to broaden my horizons, but this was extreme. If programming is all about code and rules and so forth, then philosophy is basically arguing away those rules until, theoretically, they don't exist. Yet even though it was driving me crazy then…well, it's given me an open mind to some of the things I've seen, let's just leave it at that.

Anyway, I was trying to catch up on reading, right? And I hear this helicopter way up, around the tops of the skyscrapers. Not surprising, they sometimes do training for pilots. But I still glanced up, and I was on my feet a second later, all hope of getting some reading done long gone.

The helicopter smashed into the side of a glass skyscraper, a tiny figure- the pilot maybe, I don't know- swinging out on a rope, the other end somehow attached to an adjacent building. But the helicopter didn't explode, at least not at first. The glass didn't even shatter immediately. It just…rippled, like it was water, and a stone had been skipped across it. A few seconds later, when the pilot was a good distance away and the explosion occurred, I grabbed my things and ran the other way. I couldn't explain it then, but I was scared-but not of the falling glass. I was terrified that someone had seen me watching that incredible spectacle.

That was the day the veil first began to tear.


	2. Broken Glass

Disclaimer: The only character I own in this story is the narrator and Ray. All other characters belong to Andy and Larry Wachowski. Other characters, coming later, will also be mine. This fic was inspired by the Animatrix, in that it details events occurring outside the original canon.

You know when you have a pair of jeans, and they start to age? It starts to show in one little tear in the knee, which quickly grows into a gaping hole. This was similar; however, it took a gaping hole for me to spot all of the little tears that had been quietly appearing in the fabric of my little world, my reality.

They really were small things, but they were like those picture meant to be optical illusions- once you saw the picture, it was so hard to unsee.

A friend of mine, Ray, came over one night. He was in one of my computer classes back then, called Advanced Systems Theory, and we were supposed to hang out that night. We had tried dating, and the idea wasn't completely off the table.

Of course, the fact that I had just seem a plane of steel and glass ripple just a few weeks before had made me unusually quiet and moody, to put it nicely. I was on my way to becoming a recluse, staying up until the wee hours of the morning every night, looking into a topic that I had up until recently dismissed as crackpot hacker gossip.

When Ray came in, he saw what I had been looking at, since I hadn't bothered to turn off my monitor. "Jeez, Eva. You aren't actually starting to buy into this crap, are you?" He fixed me with a wary look most people reserve for old women who keep twenty cats in their home.

Shit, I thought to myself. "Oh, that?" I asked, forcing my voice to remain light and casual. Think fast, think, think… "Oh. I, ah…I'm doing a paper on post-modern theories on the nature of human existence. The only one I could come up with off the top of my head was existentialism, and, um, they make an interesting study-from a philosophical point of view of course." I blinked, managed a light laugh.

Ray continued looking at me as if I were a mental case for a few seconds, then shook his head and laughed. "Sorry. I almost thought you were joining the Pod people there for a second," he said, inclining his head towards the screen.

"Don't you dare tell ANYone about this," I warned.

Ray and I had been friends since first year, and in part at least, he understood my motivations for keeping this quiet. "No kidding. I wouldn't want people to think I was joining that hacker cult either." He looked concerned. "Are you okay? You don't look well. Are you sure you want to go out tonight?"

He was right. I had barely slept in the past few days, and it was starting to show. This very conversation had drained the blood from my face.

I had thought that the Matrix was a hacker myth too. Most students in my comp. science program treated it as a children's story; worse actually. It was taboo to get anywhere near it. I suppose that it that made their little world of ones and zeros feel threatened. I had no idea at the time how close that was to the underlying truth at the time, but the idea of the Matrix seemed so tantalizing an explanation for what I had seen.

"I-I'm just tired." No reason to give him an all-out lie, just some small omissions. "I've been trying to make this deadline for this other thing for a while…It's just piling up a bit. Just need some rest." I turned and my elbow caught the cheap little hand mirror I used to keep, knocking it from the edge of my dresser. It fell to the floor, making the tinkling sound of shattered glass.

I let out a steaming stream of curse words under my breath while I bent to clean it up, wincing as the tired muscles in my back protested vigorously to the activity. I was luck this time, it appeared. The glass had broken, but most of it had remained in the frame, so there was relatively little cleanup. Still, I thought darkly, I won't be able to go barefoot in here until I get a hold of a dust buster. Not unless I wanted feet full of splinters for the next few weeks anyhow.

I moved to pick up the mirror and froze. If the glass was still intact, the reflection sure as hell wasn't. My hand, hovering a few inches above the glass, as if the pieces were strewn all over the floor. But they weren't. They were almost all there.

I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.

Ray guffawed behind me, and my heart caught in my throat as I whirled around, But he wasn't looking at me. He had noticed the IM that had just popped up on the screen. "Looks like the Pod people are ready to initiate you."

I looked back at the crack mirror, passed a hand over it. Normal. Just a lot of broken glass. I shuddered, then stood up to see what he was looking at. My eyes widened.

The IM, a black background with green font, read:

YOU"RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE TOTO.

THE MATRIX HAS YOU…

I barely held in a gasp as I laughed along weakly with Ray. He let himself out only after I promised to get a decent night's sleep.

I didn't sleep a wink that night. Or the night after.


	3. System Error

I only own the narrator and Ray characters, as well as the new characters I am introducing here. )

note: 9999 is computer speak for total system shutdown. A lot of people were worried about this fact during the days leading up to September 9th, 1999

START: SYSTEM ERROR

VAR: 555-9999

ERROR CORRECTED.

UNIT 275869999754643 CORRUPTED.

DISPATCH:

AGT15, AGT27.

END.

It took a week for the call to come.

A whole week of the suspense steadily building in my mind. I was lucky to sleep three hours a night then. Ray had stopped by again twice, and now I realize just how worried he was getting. But I was a wreck at the time; I still attended some of my classes, but only my philosophy ones; my often starry-eyed daze, which would have been cause for concern among my regular crowd actually helped my blend into my philosophy lectures.

Go figure.

I awoke one day, around noon, a full seven days after that fateful IM had pooped up on my computer screen. Groggily, I got up and half-stumbled into the washroom, peering blearily at my reflection Ugh. My hair was a mess, and the skin under my eyes was baggy and dark, giving me raccoon eyes. Half-heartedly, I swept my hand through my short, wheat-coloured hair. Some improvement made, but not much.

My cell phone rang, and my heart would have jump clean out of my mouth had my teeth not clenched together so tightly at that very instant. I had set it at the edge of my sink in my stupor, and it was a miracle in itself that it had not fallen in and been wrecked.

It rang three times before I got the courage to reach out and bring the phone to my ear. 'Hullo?'

'Hello Nexus,' a flat male voice replied. Holy crap, these people knew my screen name. Creepy…yet somehow I wasn't quite surprised.

The man continued. 'They know about you. I don't have time to explain who, or what, but I suggest that you leave immediately if you don't want to meet them.'

I looked down at myself, then clad in a T-shirt and boxer shorts. Also a pair of ratty blue slippers. 'Hold on…now? As in, right now?'

'That would be the idea. Go to the Adelaine subway entrance. Hurry.' The line went dead.

I know I dropped the phone, because I had both hands free to climb through my window onto the fire escape of my building. The next few minutes, however, were a blur. Only now do I realize how lucky I was that it was only 5 AM; there was almost no one to see me running the three blocks in my pajamas and slippers to get to the subway.

As I stood there, shivering on the sidewalk, a thin drizzle broke out. I raised my face to it, closing my eyes to take in the feeling of tiny raindrops lighting upon my face. This rain was even colder than the chill morning air, but it didn't bother me. As a kid I had loved going for polar dips in the lake near my house – that is, waking up at the crack of dawn and jumping into the night-chilled water. That cold had brought instant alertness and clarity like nothing else, and this gentle rain of an early spring seemed to wash the fear and fatigue out of my mind. That was, to me, the feeling of being totally and completely free.

And, in a way, I was right.

I could hear a car pull up the curb, and I opened my eyes, reluctantly bringing my mind back down to earth.

The car was a dark, forest green, of a vintage variety. It could have been a GTO, but I wasn't sure. The back door opened and a woman peered out at me.

She was clad in a long, black trench coat, with leather slacks and high-heeled boots that looked rather expensive. Her dark brown hair was braided in an elaborate cornrow design, and dark glasses hid her eyes.

She seemed to almost grin at my own attire, then got down to business. 'Nexus?'

'Yes.' I wished that I had something smart to say right about then, instead of gawking like a tourist. 'This is very weird.'

'I can't say you're wrong. Do you know why you are here?'

The phone call had confused me, but now I had an idea. 'Ah…the Matrix?'

This time she did grin. 'Get in.'

I complied. As the GTO pulled away from the curve, the woman added, 'By the way, my name is Medea.'

I had once thought that the coldness of my childhood swims had been the ultimate cold. I was wrong then, and as the chill swept through every fiber of my being in the Matrix after I had taken the red pill, I began that short and violent journey that gives a shocking clarity to the world outside.


	4. The Real

I have been known to be a slow riser. It once took me half an hour every morning to obtain a level of consciousness that would permit me to open my eyes and, very reluctantly, roll out of bed. This is not altogether bad; I have never forgotten my dreams.

As awareness returned, slowly creeping over me in its usual way, I became aware of the hard surface that I had been stretched out upon, the soft pieces of cloth laid over my private parts, and the one tucked under my head. I groaned and attempted to squirm as the most curious prickling sensation became apparent all over my skin, but I barely even the had strength to move my head. I could hear voices from a distance.

"That was a close call. She was half-dead by the time she reached the bottom."

"I know. But that doesn't matter now. Her vitals are getting stronger, and the anabolics will not likely be necessary after another two weeks."

The conversation probably went on, but I didn't hear any more. My eyelids felt so heavy, and all of my energy had been sapped from concentrating on those words. I slipped back into oblivion.

I opened my eyes.

I lay upon a cot, in a cold, metal room that gave off the distinct feelings of age, wear and tear. My head was strangely cold, and I absentmindedly reached up to my head to pat my hair down, but there was no longer any hair remaining to pat. I froze for a moment- then my hand found the plug at the back of my head. I gave a frightened little shriek.

Medea poked her head inside the room. "Ah, you're up. We were starting to worry for a while there. Most people recover in considerably less time."

I stared at her. "Am I dreaming? This all feels so weird, and yet…it just seems so totally unreal! Why am I covered in metal plugs?"

She smiled sympathetically. "Actually, you're closer to the truth that you may think. Interesting. Most only sense that there is something vaguely wrong in their reality." Medea took a step forward, surveying me closely. She seemed to be scrutinizing me closely, and as I stared back, blankly, a small flicker of pain crossed her faced and disappeared. Something was very odd here. That was not the answer that I had wanted, nor expected. Although my expectations were a little fuzzy at the moment, I was well aware that this was not an actual answer. "If I'm right about you…" she continued. "Well, I guess we'll find out soon enough."

"I just have one question, and forgive me if this is a bit much for you right now. Do you remember your dreams, normally? I mean, most, if not all of them?"

Thoroughly confused, I replied. "Well…yes. I always have. I wake up really slowly, so that helps a lot." I paused, remembering my violent disconnection and shuddering. "Sometimes…especially lately, they've been…vivid."

I neglected to mention the nightmares that I had had of late, the ones that were so incredibly brief and yet so poignantly clear. The ones that made me feel- actually feel- bound and gagged, and yet the bonds were metallic, those binds that were so intimately alien in nature. And that feeling of the most terrible loss when the dream faded. I had always woken up sobbing into my pillow, feeling like I had lost my best friend.

Medea had been watching my face closely. "Interesting," she commented, mostly to herself. I shook off my funk, suddenly uncomfortable, and concentrated on removing the IV from the plug on my forearm. When I looked back up, Medea was holding her arm out to me. "Come on," she said, "and meet the crew, Nexus. Welcome to the Peregrine."

(plaque in broadcast room)

THE PEREGRINE: CONSTRUCTED 2269

Medea lead me past the plaque. I glanced towards it, then froze as we moved away. "What the hell…!" I muttered, turning back to get another look at it. Medea saw this and turned me back. "All will become clear very soon. Come." I tried to smile back, but I was paralyzed by a sudden, nagging doubt, so massive that I couldn't bear to let the thought fully form in my mind. Yet the questions came anyhow, breaking crashing down upon my weak and shaky defenses.

Occam's Razor: the most simple explanation, no matter how ludicrous, is usually the correct one.

Did that mean that the date upon that plaque was correct?

Did that mean that my entire world, my _LIFE_ had been a lie, a farce concocted by malevolent forces?

And the worst question of all: How could this happen?

What did people do to cause this to happen?

"Plato," I breathed to my self in horrified realization. "That fucking cave…no fucking way…" Medea glanced back at the sound.

My reality was shattering. I didn't even realize that my knees had buckled until I slammed into the floor, as the shadow of understanding came unbidden, unwanted into my mind. I began to weep quietly, totally overwhelmed. After all, I might have been drugged by Medea, and this entire scene could be a hallucination. I might wake up in my room and realize that this was all a bad dream.

But the dream had persisted too long, far longer that the others. And my heart told me with absolute certainty that this place, with all its dents and signs of careful, loving repair, was the real.

With that thought, I got up on shaky legs, and, guided by a concerned-looking Medea and watched by those who had appeared to see what the fuss was about, went to meet the crew.


	5. Free Your Mind

At this point I am going to start switching viewpoints: from 3rd person, to Nexus, to other members of the crew. This is starting in 3rd, I'll mark where I change it to avoid confusion. Eventually it will all be in third person as the focus pulls back from Nexus' arrival to the bigger picture, but now it's at a point of transition.

Three members of the crew had remained inside the dining room during Nexus' episode.

The first was a thin, pallid man entering his thirties. His tied-back hair was jet black, and a goatee grew on his chin, his face angular and seeming forever hungry for something. He had not looked up from his bowl when Nexus had crashed, even though the box of equipment she had managed to upset in the process tipped and emptied its contents in a clattering chorus of crashing sounds.

The other two looked up from their synthesized meals. The woman was of Asian descent, somewhere in her mid-twenties. Her eyes were cool and dark though she looked towards the door with a slightly troubled look on her face.

The final person was different, in that no plugs adorned his body. His Middle-Eastern features became strained as the sound of tumbling equipment reached his ears, and he had nearly vaulted from the table at that moment.

The woman regarded him with amusement. "Relax Aiglos," she chided gently. "New kid just has to get her sea legs. I seriously doubt that anything left in the open like that is terribly fragile anyhow." Aiglos shot her a resentful look for her apparent lack of concern for his equipment, but reluctantly settled back into his chair to finish his meal.

A young man in his early twenties came bursting back into the room. "That kid is really freaked out," he declared. "She took one look at the date on the wall and just about had a stroke." He grinned. "And if I didn't know any better, I'd say she just cursed Play-dough. You think she' could've figured this thing out already?" He turned and looked at the thin man. "Oh, shit, you do, don't you?"

The pallid man lifted his head for the first time and, looking directly at the newcomer, spoke. "We had suspected something like that would happen, Trans. From what I heard, she witnessed an anomaly that occurred a couple of months ago when the incident with the Nebuchanezzar crew." All of this came out in a monotonous voice.

"She saw the One?" The boy's brows lifted in skepticism. "Loki, come on. That's just an urban legend."

Loki smirked "Nevertheless, she saw it. A lot of people saw it. This just happens to be one of those that managed to evade detection long enough for us to get her out." His eyes were like ice chips as he surveyed the younger man. "Just because you're free doesn't mean you can- or should- close your mind to the unknown." The boy blushed angrily at this verbal lashing.

"Try to look semi-approachable for the meet and greet, OK Loki?" the woman broke in before Trans could retort. "I think this is weird enough already for the kid."

Loki grinned despite himself. "Yes, dear."

KOI

"Yes dear."

I rolled my eyes, smiling slightly at the playful jab. I never used to be this way, at least not in my other life. I had always been that girl who had to be the biggest badass; skipping class, smoking pot in the alley by the school…hacking into every server I could get my digital hands on.

I changed a lot when I became free; perhaps I just grew up a little. Loki and Medea remember my early days, so they seem to find it amusing when I slip into the role of the ship's matriarch, telling everyone to play nice with the new recruits and so forth.

But this recruit was different. Medea had spotted her in a chat room, and sent her an IM to test her commitment to the idea that the rules of her universe were not as they appeared. Apparently, she had come from a class of programmers that we typically refer to as the Firewall group: people with great computer skill, but wouldn't see the truth if it bit them in the ass. The Matrix is actually a well-known concept among them, but those who speak of it find themselves ostracized by their peers, who absolutely refuse to see computers as anything more than tools that can be disposed of at a whim.

The human race has learned since then. Yet so many continue to live in ignorance of their own fragility.

Loki had been the one to find the difference between this girl and the rest of her peer group- she was a philosophy minor. This might seem insignificant, but it meant that she would be open to the possibilities if she ever chose to see them. She was more likely to be able to handle it something that was 'out there'.

And there was something else. Medea and Loki had been whispering about something for the last few weeks, while Nexus had been recovering. Her REM waves had indicated an unusually high level of activity while asleep. I heard little, but there were snatches where I thought I heard Medea muttering about dreams.

Medea came into the room. Skylla, our gunner and general tech, was helping her support a very shaky, wide-eyed Nexus, who had a blanket wrapped loosely about her shoulders. Her hands were shaking, but it was not extraordinarily obvious. She was managing to hold herself together, though; one couldn't really ask for much else.

Her pale green eyes swept the room, looking at each of us. Medea proceeded to introduce the crew. "This young man who just sprinted inside is Trans. He's been with us for almost a year now." She inclined her head towards each member of the crew as she got to them. "Aiglos is our operator, and you just met Skylla outside…Loki and Koi here," I gave a little wave, "are the first and second officers of this ship. I myself am the commanding officer."

"Now, this will sound confusing, but I am going to explain everything. Aiglos, I…"

Nexus suddenly broke in. "I have a question." Medea stopped her introductory spiel immediately, and Nexus continued. "I want to know what year it is."

Silence.

"If the reality is fake, then the date is probably fake. So…?"

I answered. "No one's really sure. It's been so long since calendars were kept…and we can no longer depend on the skies to be a timekeeper." Nexus stared, looking increasingly alarmed.

Medea took her by the arm. "Come on, I'll show you." As they walking out of the dining room, Medea called over her shoulder. "Aiglos, we're going to need the construct ready in five." Aiglos nodded, rising from his seat to join them. After a moment, the rest of us followed. Breaking in a new recruit always proved to be an interesting event, and no one wanted to miss it.


	6. The Construct

I do not own the concept (or Loony Toons), just some of the characters, I know, I know. In this episode I attempt to improve my grammar and sp., while avoiding those hyphens or semicolons that this thing keeps turning into periods (grumble, grumble).

MEDEA

I've always liked the Construct. Most do, actually. Why wouldn't they? The new recruits like to use it to act out what had been their greatest fantasies inside the Matrix. Trans was still going through this stage at the time back then. I never asked him what he did though – it was on his own time, and was his own business. I suspect that I wouldn't really have wanted to have that information anyhow.

The thrill of having a little VR game wears off after a while. I had been unplugged for fifteen years, and had plenty of adrenaline to spare between dodging the sentinels and our routine trips into the Matrix. Now I use the Construct as a place for quiet meditation when I have a few spare moments, which have become fewer and farther between as time passed.

However, this foray into the Construct was for business, not pleasure. Nexus looked like a frightened animal, staring around at the pure whiteness of the Construct, utterly bewildered. I didn't envy her. This part was never easy.

"Welcome to the Construct."

Nexus whirled around to face me, and I had to hide a grin. I had forgotten that she had come to meet us in her sleepwear. The baggy boxers and camisole still looked rumpled, as if she were just rolling out of bed to head to class.

She must have noticed me looking, because she looked down on herself. A look of amused confusion replaced the fearful one. "You couldn't wait for me to get dressed…" she muttered, half to herself. Looking back at me, she grew more serious. "What is going on? That woman said something about the date…"

I nodded, solemn now. This part was never easy, and everyone reacted differently when they heard to truth. Taking a deep breath, I began.

"I am going to tell you the truth about the Matrix. About the things you have seen both in there and out here. You will find it hard to accept, but all I ask is that you try to keep an open mind…"

SKYLLA

I had to give the kid credit. After that first little upset she handled it pretty well.

The four of us, Loki, Koi, Trans and I were clustered around the screens behind Aiglos, who sat at his accustomed chair, awaiting the call from Medea. Aiglos, who's free-born from Zion, was only here a few months longer than Trans, so he still makes us stand back from the screens while he works. At that point, I was the only one allowed to hover at his shoulder since he realized that if I broke anything then I would be the one to fix it anyhow. That kind of responsibility keeps you a little lighter on your feet around the delicate stuff. Koi has since then pointed out how cute it was that Aiglos was so protective of his equipment. He immediately lifted his ban.

"Alright. This chick is strange." Trans declared after the two women had been in the Construct for ten minutes.

"Thank you for that evaluation, Trans. When it was your turn, you looked like you were going to pass out." Loki replied dryly, watching the screens. Watching them has always reminded me of this old cartoon- Loony Toons, I think they called it. There was this sketch with a big dog and a little dog. The little dog would jump around, suggesting fun things to do, and the big dog would casually smack him down, and the routine would start over again. I believe that this also is often the relationship between two brothers, but I never dared share this observation – Trans would be extremely insulted by the cartoon analogy and Loki would not appreciated anyone calling Trans his little brother or any type of relative for that matter, no matter how much it looked that way. I grinned. "She's holding her own nicely," I commented. "I think she got most of the shock out of her system when she saw the date." Koi made as to object to that statement, but I went on. "I'm serious. You didn't see her hit the floor, she looked like someone had shot her in the gut. I'm surprised that she's recovered so quickly." I shook my head. "Guess a few hard questions got answered a little prematurely."

Trans wanted to say something, but Koi sent him a warning look and he resigned himself to scowling and rolling his eyes. Typical, though he should have known by then not to set me off. I've always had a tendency to be rather opinionated, and those who opposed it without careful thought would usually rue the day.

Medea had stopped talking, and was waiting to hear what Nexus had to say. We al grew quiet and watched in anticipation.

NEXUS

Impossible.

I knew that the explanation would be far-fetched, but this was simply out of the question And yet…

I had seen the fields. The electric currents rippling up one tower and down another. The pink, pulsing pods on either side of me, above below, as far as I could see.

I had felt the holes in my body, touched to plug at the back of my head with my own hand. And in the ship, I felt so different, like I had more…gravity, for lack of a better world. Everything I touched just seemed to have more substance.

I had been looking down at the "ground", if one could even call it that. Now I raised my eyes to Medea again. I could accept her truth, given some time. Yet something else was bothering me, and it was related to the clothes I now wore.

I tried to smile as I met Medea's gaze. "I think I understand. I need to let it sink in – it's a bit much to take in at once, obviously." Medea actually looked a bit surprised at this remark, albeit a bit relieved that I hadn't burst into hysteria, most likely. "I'm still confused about the mad dash that I had to take in my undergarments though. Or why I'm still wearing them. Can I change this?"

Medea actually laughed. "Yes, though I wouldn't worry too much about that right at the moment. Your appearance now is residual self-image, the digital imprint of your human self." Her smile faded. "We had to get you away from you residence quickly because certain security programs within the Matrix became alerted to your suspicions, as well as the fact that we had contacted you." Pause. "You were smart to run when you saw that helicopter crash. They did a sweep of the areas with a clear view of the glitch a few minutes after, when they had repaired to code for that building, and they may or may not have realized that you were there- or at least, not until we established contact."

She looked as if she were about to say more, but stopped herself before it came out. Instead, she drew a cell phone from her coat pocket, the same one she wore when we met, saying brusquely, "I believe that's quite enough for one person to take in at once." She punched in a number and said, "OK, take us out now."

I opened my eyes.


	7. Breakfast

TRANS

Okay, okay, I know. I can be a bit of an ass sometimes. I'm not usually that critical of things, I just tend to say whatever I'm thinking. It's not always a good thing to keep your opinion to yourself, though some people would disagree with me on that particular point.

Anyways.

Nexus had slept like a baby after being told the truth. Even I have to admit, she handled it well. When I had been in her place I had suddenly found it difficult to breathe, and passed out temporarily, and Loki has not let me forget it since.

He and Koi had eaten breakfast earlier with Medea. They were supposed to accompany Medea to see the Oracle. I went to see her once, when I was just starting my training. She was a nice enough lady- kinda like my grandmother was, actually- but messages tend to be vague, and often cryptic. She asked me how my training was going, told me to keep my head up, because dangerous times were coming. Times were already dangerous, but I didn't argue. Besides, I felt better- as everyone does- after I ate the cookie she gave me on my way out. Koi and I sometimes joke that she spikes those cookies with some kind of upper to keep us coming back.

I had come down later to eat, after the others were had plugged in, with Aiglos already focused on the screens, watching closely for any potential problems. I greeted him as I passed on my way to the dining hall, and he barely grunted his reply. Skylla was just starting her breakfast when I sat down, and Nexus came in a few minutes later, sending slightly confused glances backwards at the plugged-in crew.

I suddenly felt a little bad for how I had acted earlier. Everyone has a rough time when they're new. "You hungry?" I asked.

Nexus glanced backwards one last time, then turned her attention back toward us. "Yeah…what do you guys eat here? I haven't noticed a stove or a toaster anywhere…"

Skylla snorted, trying to hold in a sudden burst of laughter. I grinned too. When I was first unplugged, the others seemed to have great fun in introducing to me the slop that would consist of my entire diet while in the tunnels. Now I wanted a turn at it. "May I?" I asked Skylla in a mock formal voice. She made a gesture for me to go ahead, nearly stuffing her fist in her mouth to silence herself.

I got up and walked around the table to the slop pump. Grabbing a bowl, I served some of the slop up and presented it to Nexus, who turned a slight shade of green. "Hope ya like it. We don't got anything else here." She gingerly took the bowl and sat down with it. Skylla handed her a spoon. "Try to pretend its oatmeal or something."

Hesitantly, Nexus dug the spoon in and raised it to her mouth, pausing when she realized that we were watching to see her reaction until we went back to pretending to eat. She had a mouthful and immediately turned a deeper shade of green, looking as if she were about to retch. By some miracle she managed to swallow it. When she got her breath back she asked us incredulously, "You eat this every day!"

Skylla could no longer hold it in, and burst out laughing, patting her on the shoulder. "You get used to it, trust me. It's actually pretty good for you, they just forgot to add anything resembling taste, that's all." I thought of the snot analogy to our meal, but decided against it. She looked sick enough as it was. "Might as well eat it," I advised. "It's not so bad if you make it quick."

Nexus obliged after a moment of staring at the mess in her bowl. A few moments later she had finished it, and pushed her bowl away with a look of distaste on her face. Skylla decide right then to start a conversation. "Y'know, we were pretty impressed about how you took the truth yesterday. Not a lot of people" Skylla sent me a pointed look, "take to it too well at first."

Nexus look startled at the mention of the previous day's events, then distracted. "It's the weirdest thing," She started. "I had to study this text and present my findings from one section just before I saw…" She trailed off. After a moment, she shook her head. "Never mind. It was so weird. Everything she said to me…I had already read it in a book written two thousand year ago."

Skylla's eyes went wide, all mirth gone from them. "What do you mean?" her voice had gone quiet, almost awestruck.

Nexus was no longer looking at us. "Plato's Republic. The technology's updated, but all the parts are there." She looked almost as though she were trying to convince herself, rather than us. Her head suddenly snapped us as she remembered that we were there, and she blushed, embarrassed. "Sorry. I should explain."

"Say that there were a group of people raised from childhood in a cave. Their arms and legs are bound, and they can't turn their heads to the side. An overseer tends a fire behind them, and uses it to create shadows on the wall in front of them. These people come to believe that these images are real things, that they are all there is of the world."

I nodded, almost unconsciously. Yes, that did sound a lot like the Matrix. I glanced at Skylla, who looked slightly disturbed. Nexus continued.

"Now say one of these prisoners somehow got out, out of the bonds and outside of the cave. They would likely feel like their senses are overloaded, since they are seeing sun and stars and trees and whatnot. Again, the truth is a little different, darker, but still pretty close." She paused, her eyes darting between Skylla and I to gauge our reactions. We had become very quiet. "It's actually the next part that makes me a little nervous, because the rest of it has already come true. It's about that person making a choice between whether to hide away or to go back and try to get the others out. If the person chooses to hide, they might be more safe, but would feel guilty for leaving the others behind. If they went back in…well they stood a pretty large chance of getting killed. Either by the overseer trying to keep the outside a secret, or the by other prisoners out of fear from hearing such a strange tale."

Nexus had grown increasingly pale during that last part. She looked at Skylla, then me, and looked sick all over again. "Oh shit," she said in a frightened whisper. "It's true, isn't it?"

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I never imagined that anyone could have forecasted humanity's future so accurately millennia ago. "This is on a bigger scale," I said lamely. Oh, right, like that will make her feel any better about the situation. "I guess that's the general idea, yeah. But some parts are actually pretty amazing. You'll see when you start training."

"Training?" She looked like she was just remembering something. "Oh! I meant to ask before. What are they doing?" Nexus indicated to the rest of the crew strapped into the chairs in the other room.

Skylla seemed relieved to be back on familiar ground. "They've gone inside the Matrix to see the Oracle. She shows up inside now and then, rebels-that's what we are- go to see her for advice and such. You'll probably meet her sooner or later." She sent me a look that was slightly resentful. "I've heard she makes good cookies. I wouldn't know, of course- no holes." She patted the back of her head.

I scooped up the last mouthful of slop from my bowl. "I wouldn't worry about it," I said. "She's a little vague with the advice. I guess that she doesn't want people to look too far into it or something."

Nexus looked interested. "Did you see her?"

"Yeah. It's- well, you'll see when you go meet her I guess." I left it at that. She looked at me quizzically, but didn't press it any further.

MEDEA

Loki pulled the car over to the curb in front of a building that seemed to have seen its share of years. Graffiti covered to orange brick of the apartment building, and the concrete stairs were on the edge of crumbling into pieces. I silently got out of the passenger side door and made my way inside.

I still wasn't sure why the Oracle wanted me here. However, I had not heeded her last warning, all those years ago, and it had ended disastrously. This time I would listen.

I took the elevator upstairs to her floor and walked to her door. Strangely, no one was there to greet me at the door. I entered the apartment. It was so quiet inside. The children that were normally there, those gifted ones, were gone. I headed for the kitchen door.

She was inside, beyond the beads that served as a door to the room. She sat at the table, as always, already with her cigarette. "Quiet here today," I commented.

She gave me a motherly smile. "Yeah, this hasn't been a good place for the kids lately. They're spending a little time at home for now. So, Medea. It's been a while since you last came around to visit. How have things been for you?" She always seemed so casual. She might have been commenting on the weather.

I kept my poker face. "Tolerable, I suppose." The Oracle smiled; I supposed she saw right though the lie, but wasn't about to call me on it. We both knew it, so why say it out loud?

There was a long silence. She finally sighed. "Tough times ahead, hon," she said, looking out the window. "And hard decisions will come with them for everyone."

It was now my turn to sigh. Vague, as usual. "I've heard some rumors about the Nebuchanzzar," I said, hoping to get some more direct information.

The old woman's eyes lit up. "Neo's a good kid. He's making a lot of things possible for all of you now." She changed the subject. "I hear you got a new girl on board. You should bring her around next time you're in the neighbourhood."

I nodded, turning to go. "I'll do that."

I turned back when the Oracle offered her traditional cookie, thanked her, and left, walking away as quickly as I could. She was a nice woman, but she always gave me the creeps. That place always brought back bad memories for me, memories that were better left buried.

I exited the building, and got back into the car. As Loki pulled away from the curb, Koi called up Aiglos to tell him that we'd be back soon. Loki looked at me questioningly. "I want to start training Nexus tomorrow. She wants to see her soon." I jerked my head in the direction of the building that was rapidly falling behind us.


	8. Training

NEXUS

"Come ON! Stop thinking about hitting me and just do it!" Koi's voice rang out from

across the simulation of a large room.

I had had a very different picture in my mind when Koi had told me that I would be

starting my training today. I had thought that I would be able to mess around with those

funky computers, the only things in the craft that seemed to have managed to keep on the 'cutting edge of technology' so to speak. However, Aiglos appeared to be of the opinion that if I touched the equipment then I would find myself on a rather different type of cutting edge.

After eight hours of training, I was finding that my digital 'muscles' seemed to remember every maneuver to exquisite perfection. My lungs seemed to no longer have want for air as I sailed through the air, attacking Koi as she had instructed me to do.

Yet every perfect move was thwarted, and I found myself sailing backwards from the

kick Koi had just delivered me, hitting the floor hard as she egged me on.

And was that a note of amusement in her voice that I just heard?

Did she find kicking my ass across the room funny? I do believe that she did.

Fine. Bring it on.

I inhaled deeply and launched myself to my feet, exhaling as my feet once again held me

upright on the false floor. Positioning myself, I cleared my head of all distracting

thoughts and concentrated hard on Koi.

Hold on a second. I had never concentrated that hard in my dreams before.

I could argue that this didn't really count as a dream. But how could that be, if the real

my was strapped in a chair with a spike jammed in my head?

And the basic rules in dreams tend to be pretty lax…

Grinning inwardly, I faced Koi for the next round.

Medea walked up behind Aiglos, who was glued to the screen. Skylla glanced over, then

resumed watching the battle unfold on the screen. "She's catching on fast," the blonde

woman commented.

"Yes, though it really shouldn't be that surprising," said Loki, whose eyes had remained

glued to the screen. "I took a philosophy class in high school. Totally different than any

of the other shit they taught there. You could make yourself believe anything if you could lend it enough logic." He looked up to see Skylla staring at him. "What? It's true. I used to think of philosophy class as 'the art of bullshit'."

"I though they taught rhetoric in English class," Medea said dryly, not really paying

attention. Yes, Nexus was improving at a startling speed in her training. Yet the jump test had not been done yet.

On the screens, Nexus' neurokinetics jumped as she crouched low and swept Koi's

legs out from under her with one outstretched leg. Aiglos reached for the jump disk,

getting himself organized for the next step.

KOI

Damn, this kid was getting _good_.

Picking myself up off the ground, I regarded Nexus with a critical eye. Something was

definitely up here. I had heard of recruits doing unusually well on their first sparring

practice- some people just pick up the rhythm real quick- but something was up here. She had been doing good, but just as that last round had started her eyes had lit up, and the look on her face had been that of a poker player with an ace up their sleeve. "I'm curious. You got much better in the space of about twenty seconds. What happened there?"

Nexus looked down at her feet and blushed. "I figured that if this whole thing was a

dream, then the rules that exist in dreams apply. And those rules are only governed by

own subconscious's, so you could pull off a lot more in here- or in the Matrix." The grin

reappeared. "That was so awesome! I could never move that fast before!" She looked right at me. "You guys must have a field day when you go in there." Her voice faltered as she saw my face go suddenly grim.

If she were to go into the Matrix at this point, the odds would be stacked highly against her getting back out, no matter how talented she was becoming. The girl believed that inside the Matrix, she would be invincible. I sighed. Someone had to give her the bad news. I could only hope that the message came across with the next few exercises.

I reached for my phone. "It's not that simple," I said aloud. Let Medea tell her about rebel death rates during agent training. I pressed a key, and Aiglos answered on the other end. "Let's try the jump program."

LOKI

Nexus came into the dining hall after a few hours of rest after her training, still rubbing her jaw. Trans had just gotten a hold of a jug of Skylla's home brew, and we were having a late-night-though who really knew the time anymore? - drink as she came through the door. Trans glanced up, and was unable to suppress a slight snicker at her appearance. "Wow, you look like shit." Nexus raised her brow as she sat down with us. "Um, thanks," she muttered.

She looked like she hadn't slept for ages, probably due to the jump program. That thing was always a shock to the system the first time. No one ever made the first jump. Nexus might have landed on her feet though, had the pavement not trampolined her back upwards as her feet had struck it a terminal velocity. The second landing had been face first, but at a lesser speed upon impact. That would throw anyone off.

Nexus eyed the metal cup I was holding with some interest. "What's that?" she inquired. After a moment's consideration, I pushed the cup across the table to her. She picked it up and gingerly took a sip- and nearly spit it out. After a brief struggle she seemed to succeed in swallowing the brew. She looked at Trans and I wide-eyed. "You're telling me that there has been alcohol here this entire time…and I didn't know about it?" She eyed Trans suspiciously, who was paying very close attention to a dent in the table, trying hard not to laugh. After a minute she looked back at the cup. "What is this shit, Jamaican rum?"

"Skylla makes it. It's a recipe she got from this guy who used to be on the Neb crew." At the mention of the Nebuchanezzar incident he looked away, uncomfortable, which was understandable. The lives we lead hold enough perils from the outside. But from the crew itself…it was nearly unthinkable.

Nexus, however, missed this act of discomfort entirely. "The Neb? What's that, another ship? Like this one?"

"Yeah," I said. "The Nebuchanezzar. It's another hovercraft. A lot of weird shit happened with them a few months ago." I paused. "What was it you saw while you were inside? Medea's keeping kinda close about the specific details, but from what I've heard, you saw someone from the Neb's crew."

Nexus furrowed her brow, thinking. "A helicopter," she murmured. Something must have been wrong with it because it was headed right into a skyscraper. There was a rope-or something- going from the copter to the roof of another building. Someone- the pilot maybe, I'm not sure- jumped out just before the copter hit, swinging on the rope away from the damage. They were wearing a lot of black, I think. It was hard to tell." She shook her head. "Here's the thing that really freaked me out. I don't think that person could've gotten away under normal circumstances. But when the copter hit the building, the glass didn't break. It was like it was water for a few seconds. It exploded a few second later, I think. I'm not sure. I just felt that I had to get the hell out of there as soon as I possibly could." She smiled bitterly. "I ran eight blocks before I could convince myself to stop and take a breather. I didn't sleep too well after that." It suddenly dawned on her and she looked up at me sharply. "You know who that was!"

I glanced over at Trans. He had not previously known what she had specifically seen, but this was a familiar story to all of the crews by now, and he decided to answer. "Sounds like Trinity, from what I've heard about the incident. It's actually a pretty wild story, and not a particularly easy one to swallow." He went back to nursing his drink, glancing up a moment later to see Nexus looked at him expectedly, looking irritated. I said nothing, and just watched. He was doing this on purpose, but it wouldn't last long. Almost on cue, Trans grinned at her. "Oh, you wanted to hear it. I guess I could do that." He shook his head. "Too bad you haven't been here long enough to read the files on it. The only place they have translated versions is Zion." Nexus looked slightly confused at this, but seemed to let it go, motioning impatiently for Trans to continue.

And, at great lengths, he did.

Inside the Matrix, unnoticed by the flashing screens on board the hovercrafts, a twenty year old man sat in a plastic chair by a reception desk. He looked nearly as drained as Nexus currently was, as he slumped into the chair, his briefcase thrown carelessly on the floor, with a cell phone glued to his ear. A tinny voice spoke into his ear as he sat there, half-listening.

"I don't get it, this isn't like her. That girl is so rational. Why the hell would she take off like that?" The man made a noncommittal sound, as the voice continued. "You don't think she's involved with anything, do you? I mean, I noticed that she hasn't been to class in the past few weeks. Have you noticed anything weird, Ray?"

The young man straightened slightly in his chair and sighed. "I don't know Gena. She looked like she hadn't slept in days last time I talked to her." He stopped himself from saying anymore, glancing around to see if anyone was in earshot almost superstitiously. "She'd been doing some pretty…strange…research, but she told me that it was for a philosophy paper. You know, obscure theories. Listen, I'm at the police station, and I just filed the missing persons thing, I'm just supposed to talk to someone before I go. I gotta go." With that he clicked END and replaced the phone in his jacket pocket. Slumping back into the chair, he resumed staring at the ceiling. "Shit," he whispered to himself.

Ray wished that he had paid more attention to Eva when he had visited her place weeks ago. He had called her folks to see what was up, but they hadn't seen her. It was like she had simply disappeared from the face of the earth.

He had begun to think more and more about urban legends these days.

When he had been visiting Eva, there had been a site about the elusive hacker fairy tale- the Matrix. The story, which seemed only to travel in whispers when people were sure that they would not be overheard, was that the world's greatest and most talented hackers, like that guy- what was his name? – who'd cracked the IRS D-base, would dig just a little too deep. Found some shit called 'the Matrix'. These people either were immediately booked- or simply vanished off the face of the earth. Poof. Just like that. Ray had assumed that it was simply just a metaphor to the perils of hacking, but back when he had first heard it, cold shivers had run down his spine. The moral of the story? Some things are not worth digging into. Hacking is bad for your health. Simple as that.

Except when it wasn't. Like now. When Eva had gotten that weird IM, she had looked scared. She hid it pretty quick, but the fear was there.

A male voice that wasn't quite monotonous broke into Ray's thoughts, causing him to look up at the imposing figure that stood before him. "Mr. Wallace. I apologize for the wait. My name is Agent Black. If you would follow me, this ought to be relatively brief." The man's attire was slightly surprising. He wore a dark suit, complete with leather shoes and tie. Dark sunglasses concealed his eyes, and a microphone adorned one ear.

Ray got up, collecting his briefcase, and followed the agent down the hall, brow creased in confusion. Agent? Like F.B.I. agent? Secret Service agent? Just what in the hell had Eva gotten herself into?


	9. Lucid Dreaming

_A little girl stood by the bedroom door. She could not have been more than eight years old, her golden hair then long and shiny. Her expression was forlorn as she watched to boy inside the bedroom frantically shoving disks into a packsack. "Stevie, what's wrong?" she asked in a frightened little voice. _

_The boy looked up, hearing the fear in his little sister's voice. He was seventeen years old back then, a gangly teenager who never seemed to eat enough. He had become moody and withdrawn over the past year, spending more and more time shut in his room, taking solace only in his computer and the little world that lay therein it. He always seemed to be so _angry_ at the world nowadays, like it had lied to him about something of dire importance. _

_But then there was the phone call…_

_Minutes before the phone had rung, and Steve had answered it. His voice had gone hollow and frightened; she could hear the strength running out of it in the hall, and the girl had come to investigate. Now the boy took notice of her presence, sadness replacing the wild panic on his face. "I'm sorry Evie," he said quietly. "I have to go for a while. Mom will be home in an hour, you'll be okay." _

"_Will you be back soon?"_

_The boy dropped his eyes. "I don't know."_

_The girl looked down at her hands, at the objects that had come from a party bag from her best friend's birthday party the week before. They were magnets, shaped like cartoon characters. The boy spotted these and grinned despite himself, an idea forming in his head. "I don't think there's room for those on the fridge Evie, but you can decorate my computer with them if you want."_

_The girl's face lit up at this rare gesture. She was NEVER allowed near her brother's stuff. "Cool!" she exclaimed, running over and getting right down to work of putting each magnet where it would look prettiest. She only learned later that she was unwittingly destroying his hard drive, and thus any evidence of foul play. _

_The boy slipped quietly out of the house, unheeded by the little girl._

Nexus opened her eyes, taking in the dream that was in fact an old memory. After a moment, she gasped and nearly rocketed from her cot.

Loki was up. He'd know.

She practically flew down the hall and up the ladder to the main deck. There he was just watching the code fly by on the screens. "Hey," she gasped breathlessly, taking a moment to remember that she was not in the shape that she had been in while inside the Matrix. Loki waited patiently for her to continue, having the good grace not to poke fun at her entrance.

When Nexus got her breathe back, she asked him: "How long have you been in here? I mean in the real world and everything?" Loki thought for a moment, answering cautiously; this couldn't be what she had rushed up here to ask. "I got out when I was…" He paused, squinting as he counted back, "…Thirteen? Fourteen? I'm not entirely sure. It's been close to twenty years I'd bet. Why-" Nexus interrupted him. "And most people here were hackers while they were inside, right? That's the impression that I got anyhow." Loki nodded. Nexus seemed to be exploding to tell him something. "What is it?"

Nexus took a deep breath, looking straight at him. "Do you know a guy called 'Worm'? That was his screen name anyhow. He thought I never saw it, but I sometimes managed to sneak in there." She laughed. "He'd get so mad at that. I wasn't allowed near his stuff, and only now do I get why."

Loki had gone from wearily amused to stunned in a matter of seconds. Yes, he had heard of Worm before. "I might know him," he said quietly, cautiously. "Why do you ask?"

Nexus' eyes bored into him, watching his reaction very carefully. "When I was eight my brother took off. No explanation, no note, no nothing. The last thing me said to me was that I should decorate his computer with magnets." She shrugged, almost to herself. "I was too young to know that I was destroying evidence, and eventually my parents realized that too. So he's here." She did not sound terribly surprised.

"It could be the same guy." He relented after a moment's consideration. Medea would be _quite _interested in hearing thislittle morsel of information, Loki thought with an inner grin to rival that of his trickster namesake.

After Nexus had gone back to bed the gossip mill began to churn.

Medea was getting ready for her shift when Loki sauntered by her door, stopping as if surprised to see her. Medea had seen this act before; it meant that Loki had one of his little games in mind. "This better be good, Loki." She hadn't slept well, and the sooner this shift was through, the better. The day's work promised to be tedious to an extraordinary degree, though Medea wouldn't have minded if it had not meant going through some highly undesirable intersection that always seemed to be patrolled by sentinels nowadays. If there were a safer route she would have taken it; however, this passage had always been the best way to slip through the nets on the way to Zion, and that had not changed, unless she were suddenly gifted with the ability to fly the mechanical lines- a feat that had been tried and failed at time and time again in her time. Back in the old days, when the sentinels had been just beginning to permeate the old tunnels…but no. Medea was a good captain, but she was no daredevil pilot. Besides, the Peregrine only had a few good weeks left in her until she needed a recharge, and the food supply was starting to run low as well.

"Oh, it is," Loki chuckled. He sat amiably down in front of her as she buckled her boots. "Remember that mission we took with the Solaris crew about three years ago?"

Medea snorted. "How can I forget? That asshole'd been the captain for what, a month? And he hijacks half our team to go on some wild goose chase without even notifying anyone. I had to leave the potential in the dust just so I could get to a hard line because they can't get their details straight." She glared at Loki. "Thanks a lot. I wasn't feeling great to begin with, but now I'll have that jerk on my mind all day. What the hell's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing really. I just happened to learn that Nexus believes she may have a brother out here…by the name of Worm…thought you might be interested." Loki was grinning now. "I was wondering what the funniest way to reintroduce them might be…" He seemed to ponder for a moment. "I have a few ideas…do you?" Loki looked at her inquiringly, dripping of false innocence.

Medea looked appraisingly at Loki. Maybe today wouldn't be so bad after all.

Skylla poked her head into the cockpit, where Aiglos was gearing up for the long journey down. "Hey, Aiglos?"

"What?" Aiglos didn't bother looking up; he was busy punching in the first set of coordinates, scanning the map onscreen for the best path to take.

"Medea was wondering which ships are scheduled to be docked while we're there." Aiglos stopped his work for a moment, squaring his jaw as he worked it out. Each ship had its own pattern of returning to Zion. Some ships pushed it, like the Neb just about always did, and came back at the last possible minute. The Peregrine usually took five to six week intervals between refueling trips. However, he had known nearly all of the operators since childhood, and they had a good sense of when they would run into eachother.

"The Hammer should be in…they take pretty short trips…so does the Solaris. I'm pretty sure that the Neb will be there. It's getting close to three months for them. I think that's it…you expecting someone?" he asked, craning his head back to look at her.

Skylla's mouth quirked into a small grin. "We might be."


	10. Place The Name

Let's Play Find the Author Avator! Need a Hint? Check my profile! (This was written roughly two years ago…as a result The avatar is a bit..different from the author as she is today…although she still has her share of STFU moments)

It was a busy morning, as far as Zion days went. Cian had been jacked into the Construct since 05:00, bringing in three ships, but her work wasn't over quite yet. The morning's last ship was on approach to Gate Three to dock, and it was up to her to bring them safely through.

Typing the pass codes in as fast as she was able, Cian just needed the entrance codes from the hovercraft just outside the docking bay. After she had seen them safely inside, she could go home. She might even be back early enough to see her girls home from school today. The thought lit up her face as the necessary codes appeared on the screen ahead of her. Smiling, she cleared them to dock at Docking Bay 4.

"Nebuchanezzar, you're cleared. Welcome home."

Nexus stepped out of the Peregrine for the first time, awed at the sheer size of the docking bay. Trans stepped out behind her, following her gaze. He smiled at the look of wonder on her face. "If you think this is impressive, wait till you see the city."

Nexus barely seemed to hear him. "This…this is all underground? This is huge."

"Four miles underground, actually," a voice spoke up behind them. Nexus and Trans looked behind them to see Aiglos stepping out, carrying his gear. "We're close to the earth's core, since the sun's rays haven't actually reached the surface for over a century. This is the next best option for warmth." Aiglos walked past them, as if his words signified something that was no longer of any consequence.

Nexus shook her head. "I still can't get over that part," she murmured. "It's so easy to believe that you're just inside some VR game when you're plugged in. But when there's no sky?" She looked down at her boots, embarrassed.

Trans looked at her sympathetically. "I know. It sucks." Nexus smiled slightly at his eloquent choice of words. "Most of us try not to dwell on it too much, I think. That kind of thing will eat you alive if you let it."

An awkward silence hung between them for a moment. Looking around, Trans ventured for a new subject. "So. Skylla mentioned that you had a brother here..."

"Yeah," Nexus said. "I can't be entirely sure, but he seems to have the same story as everyone else here. Y'know, does some hacking, and then disappears into thin air." She shook her head ruefully. "I had the FBI up my ass for three weeks for wrecking his hard drive. They thought I did it on purpose. At least I thought it was the FBI back then because they all had the same first name; Agent." She said the last word with emphasis, still avoiding Trans' eyes, which had widened in surprise, then in understanding. She paused, then suddenly laughed harshly in her recollection. "What is it?" Trans asked. Nexus had an enigmatic quality to her; the more he learned about her, the more mystified he became. "I just remembered what it was that convinced them that I was just a stupid little kid at the time." This time she looked Trans straight in the eye and said with pride. "I tried to rush an Agent and punch him in the groin." Trans stared at her in shock, trying to register her words. He finally found a response. "Were. You. Insane."

She looked back at him with the same level of gravity. "Well…I was only eight at the time, so technically yes, but I at least I made myself look dumb enough for them to bugger off." She shook herself out of her funk. "At least Medea let me in on the joke. Our little Stevie has a flare for getting people pissed off at him, doesn't he?" She grinned. "I was thinking of a surprise introduction of the banzaii variety." She heard a snort of laughter behind her, and turned to see Koi, who was attempting to hold in hysterical laughter. Nexus looked at her quizzically, though Trans seemed to chuckle at this as well. At this moment the rest of the crew can out of the craft to see this little scene.

Koi gasped for breathe. "Little Stevie, oh man…he's never gonna live that one down," she said as the battle to contain her laughter was slowly but surely lost. Skylla, Loki and the captain, first watched this amusedly, joining her as the laughter slowly infected them all. Even Medea had to smile as she turned her head just in time to see the crew of the Solaris exiting their ships, shooting quizzical and envious looks in their direction

Nes looked over at the sound of laughter coming from the direction of the Peregrine crew, pursing her lips in slight annoyance. Anyone could see that the Peregrine crew was closer than most families, and she envied them for it. On the Solaris it mostly felt like a job; Worm was not a cruel captain, but he upheld their ranks and treated them accordingly, distancing himself from his crew. He hadn't always been like that- a few years back she could remember Worm as a quirky and vibrant being. Yet the year several of the crew had been killed the year he had been made captain. He had built a wall of coldness around himself since then, shutting out those who had tried to get close. Of course, the fact that his grief over the loss had spurned him to act so damned rashly back then had not won him any gold stars with the other ships. In fact, this appeared to be the first time in a while that none of the Peregrine crew had shot her a poisonous look upon arrival.

She looked a little closer. Looked like they had a new recruit. Nothing out of the ordinary of course, now that the One was present in their forces. There were so many minds being freed these days that the council would have trouble keeping track of them all soon.

Maiar and Thorn came out behind her, each shouldering their personal belongings in a packsack, with little Tangerine bounding up behind them. The eighteen year old hacker had been unplugged for three months now, and she had all the energy of a manic puppy. She was capable of being serious, of course, or Worm could not have tolerated her presence. Personally, Nes didn't mind her much at all. Ship life could be pretty monotonous, and the kid had a bit of a tendency to shake things up just a bit.

Tangerine saw the laughing crowd as well. "See that? Would it kill you guys to do something like that for once?" she said wistfully, directing her comment at the two in front of her.

"It might. Do you really want to find out?" Thorn snapped. He just wanted to get to his room and sleep. He had been up for the last thirteen hours moving through sentinel and Zion's defense systems, and he figured it was owed to him.

Worm exited the ship then, head, down and fighting sleep. He had grown in the last twelve years. His gangly seventeen year-old frame had become taller, and had widened across the back, and his angular jaw was set in a way that made people think twice before approaching him. His wheat-coloured hair had been allowed to grow out to touch his shoulders, covering his plug and held back with a simple band of cloth.

The nearby laughter cut through his headache like a knife, causing him to jerk himself up out of his funk, furiously scanning for the noise that had aggravated his aching head, his eyes resting on the crew of the Peregrine. Typical.

The group began to move away from the ship when Tangerine stopped suddenly, causing Worm to nearly run over her. He cursed, dropping his bags, but the girl didn't notice. "Oh, wow," she breathed softly. "Is that the One?"

Ness looked up to see the crew of the Nebuchanzzar deboarding their ship not fifty feet away.

The group quieted down as the Solaris crew stopped at the sight of the Neb. Trans looked expectedly towards Nexus, about to enquire if she was going to do it or not, but Nexus had disappeared. He looked behind him, noticing that Loki was absent as well.

Koi noticed him watching and indicated towards the other crew. "Keep watching. It's all in motion," she said with a grin.

Trans regarded the Solaris captain for the first time in his relatively short time of being unplugged. He just looks like her, he thought to himself.

Nexus and Loki moved up behind them, unnoticed by the distracted crew. "That's him alright," she whispered to her companion. Loki simply nodded; the resemblance between brother and sister was actually quite striking. It was an interesting thing to witness in the real world, where humans were grown in pods and heredity was an uncertain thing.

Worm was at the back of the group, looking tired and annoyed at the sudden stop. Nexus stepped towards her brother while Loki hung back. She stood less than a meter away when she said quietly, "Mr. Emerson, so nice to see you again."

Worm seemed to freeze at that, irrational fear clawing to get a foothold in his brain. He had only heard that name spoken once since he was freed, and he had never wanted to hear it again. However, they had left the Matrix outside in the tunnels where they could achieve the proper broadcast depths. Swallowing hard, he turned to face this new assailant- only to be faced with a newly unplugged girl whose light hair was barely a fuzz on her head, standing nearly a foot shorter than him.

She also looked somehow familiar. She managed a small smile. "Hi Steve. Or should I say Worm now?"

Worm simply stared at her for a moment. He found his voice after a moment. "Eva."

The girl shook her head. "Nexus." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Do you have any idea how much shit I was in for that little magnet stunt of yours?" Worm's stony expression fell away as he suddenly found sometime very interesting about Nexus's shoes. Loki observed that he was smiling slightly.

The rest of the Solaris crew suddenly noticed the presence of this new person.

Tangerine chose to state the obvious: "Hey, it's the newbie!" Nes seemed to chuckle at this. Subtlety was not a gift that Tangerine seemed to possess. It was at this point that she noticed the similarities between her captain's face and the face of the girl in front of him. "Well I'll be damned."

At the same moment the Peregrine crew deemed this to be an opportune moment to join this reception as they made their way over.

"You said you were gonna do banzaii!" Trans called over as he sidled up to the group. Nexus made a face at him as Medea laughed softly. Worm looked at his new-found sister. "She put you up to this?" Nexus shook her head.

"Where's Aiglos?" Nes asked Skylla. She was also a Zionite, the Solaris' operator. Skylla rolled her eyes. "Oh, he's just being sociable. You know him." She said in a biting voice. The two women laughed together.

Nexus glanced over at the crew of the Neb and her eyes grew wide. Worm saw this and followed her gaze over to a woman with dark hair moving away from the Neb. She had a regal poise, though she seemed to be unaware of it. Nexus looked at Medea. "She's from the Neb?"

Medea nodded. "Yes, Nexus. That is her."

Nexus looked back at the woman in awe. "I saw her when I was inside." she said softly. Only Skylla and Worm caught her words.

At that moment a boy of about Tangerine's age can streaking past. "HEY NEO!" The man walking next to Trinity looked back and seemed to wince slightly, though Nexus could not say for certain.

"Here it comes," Skylla said gleefully. The group seemed to chuckle as a unit and moved towards the third crew, eager to catch the show.


	11. ABCD

The dark haired woman that Nexus could now identify as Trinity hid a grin as the Kid's bellowing reached them. Neo had never really gotten used to the attention paid to him by the citizens of Zion, but the Kid's hero-worship was kind of sweet in its naïveté. It was true that Neo had played a part in the Kid's release from the Matrix- the totality of his faith in Neo had saved him when any other hacker would have been gunned down. But the boy had put the pieces together himself- he had been his own red pill.

Now if only he would figure that part out…

They seemed to be drawing a crowd this time, before they had even left the docks. This time, at least, the faces approaching were familiar ones, from the Peregrine and the Solaris ships. Maybe they could distract Kid so they could slip away- the walls of the Neb were thin, and an insatiable hunger had been rising in her for the last few days that could not be quenched by the slop they ate on the ship. She glanced at Neo, catching and locking his gaze for a brief moment- long enough for her to reads a similar hunger brewing in her lover.

The three crews converged, exchanging polite greetings. In the midst of it all, Nexus stood rooted to the spot, staring at Trinity and Neo, apparently star struck. The captain of the Nebuchanezzar noticed this as he was discussing the growing number of sentinels in the tunnels with Loki. Loki turned his head to see what had briefly captured Morpheus' attention and chuckled. "You probably see a lot of people looking like that when around those two, huh?" Loki paused a moment, scratching his chin. "Told us she saw your pair there crash a helicopter into a building, and delayed the explosion till she got clear. Medea found out a coupla days ago that she started having dreams right after about being in a pod. She was actually flickering in and out of the Matrix, like a TV with bad reception. The funny thing is that she's barely a hacker at all. She was a comp. sci. and philosophy student at some fancy school."

Loki looked at Morpheus, who seemed to smile slightly at Loki's incredulous air. "Lemme guess. You've been expecting something like this." Morpheus' slight smile widened. "I admit that the dream part is a strange thing. Her connection to the Matrix may have been weakened by what she had witnessed, especially during an unconscious state. But cases such as the one you mention are becoming more frequent now, especially since Neo has come into his own. There are more witnesses now, and they are becoming more difficult for the system to contain." This was said with the air of one suggesting they go out for tea. "I am interested in one thing, however; the records show that there was a sweep done of any and all potential witnesses in that area, since it was visible to so many."

It was Loki's turn to smile. "It took them around 30 seconds to repair the damage before they could focus on the witnesses, and by then Nexus had hauled her ass out of there." Morpheus laughed appreciably at this.

Nes and Skylla had carried their conversation over the amalgamated group. "So Worm has a baby sister," Nes marveled. "Amazing. And here we were, all thinking that he had hatched from a dragon egg…I bet she had had that agent bit cooked up for a while now. Worm nearly had a stroke when she said that."

Skylla laughed. "Vengeance can be sweet sometimes. She told Loki that she'd been paid a visit by agents after Worm was tapped to verify that she was, in fact, a freak-out little kid.I wouldn't forget something like that in a hurry." Her grin took on a smug quality. "And I've been noticing that our very own Trans has been growing less asinine by the day since she woke up after we fixed her up. Methinks she's having quite an effect on our resident motormouth. Speaking of motormouths, how's yours?"

Nes glanced around, attempting to locate Tangerine in the crowd. The girl had sidled up quietly to where Neo and Trinity were, with the Kid going on at a mile a minute. Normally excitable and talkative, the girl seemed to have reverted to the quiet child that Maiar had plucked up from the Matrix. After watching the trio for a few moments, Tangerine approached the Kid, tapping him on the shoulder. When the Kid turned towards her, the short girl stood on her toes and whispered something briefly into the Kid's ear. The Kid turned bright red and excused himself to Neo, as he turned tail and went to go milk one of the others for information from the warfront. Tangerine beamed at Neo and Trinity, who looked back at her, both relieved and mystified. After a moment she turned wordlessly and went back towards where Nes and Skylla stood, regarding her curiously. "What on earth did you tell that boy?" Nes demanded.

Tangerine blushed brightly. "Uh…that they probably wanted to, uh, gohavesex," Tangerine finished to sentence in a great rush, but both women had caught it. "Oh, Tan. You didn't." Nes appeared something resembling appalled, while the less mature Skylla burst out laughing.

Tangerine became defensive. "Well, it was pretty obvious, the way they were looking at eachother and everything." She looked back at the crowd, but Neo and Trinity were nowhere to be found. "See? They're already gone."

Nes looked about ready to smack the girl upside the head. Tangerine seemed to sense this as she grinned her most impish grin and darted away into the crowd. Nes glared after her, obviously perturbed. Skylla looked at her friend with great doe eyes. "Aww, Ness. you're just so…motherly. It's really quite sweet." Nes froze, turning slowly to look at the other woman, half disgusted and half amused. Skylla gave a Cheshire grin in return, and slowly, Nes decided to reciprocate it. After all, this was a time of rest and replenishment. Why not have a little fun once in a while?

Captain Mifune strode towards the three intermingled crews, his face stony and grim. The bags under his eyes were dark and pronounced, a sign of the three consecutive nights of sleep he had missed over the last week.

Loki caught sight of the familiar face first. He grinned, waving at the captain of Zion's defense systems. However, the grin slid off his face as Mifune shook his head slightly at Loki, looking at him balefully with hollow eyes. Loki turned, catching Medea's eye and jerking his head in Mifune's direction. Medea craned her neck to see over the others as a cloudy expression passed over her face upon seeing Mifune's current state. Any time Mifune looked that tired meant that bad news was coming.

Loki drifted over to Koi and Nexus, who had just noticed the subtle shift in the mood of the group. They watched as Medea quickly made her way over to Morpheus and Worm, calling the captains' attention towards the newcomer.

Koi looked worried. "Must have something to do with the extra sentinels we've been seeing lately." She sighed, then seemed to shake off her funk. "Oh, well. I guess Medea can tell us about it tonight." The captains seemed to stop, as if they had forgotten something, and Koi's face visibly brightened. "Ooh, looks like you might be meetin' the Council today, newbie. They like to meet the people who're fightin' for them, preferably soon after the unplugging. That, and room assignment, paperwork, some other stuff."

Sure enough, Worm turned back towards the group, waving Nexus over. "Hey Ev!" he called. "You might want to come along too, you need to get some stuff sorted out."

Nexus gave a disgruntled snort at the mention of her coppertop name, a thing that she had quickly learned was greatly frowned upon early on when she had asked Trans what his name had been. "You might not want to ask that around here," the young man had advised her. "People don't like being reminded of their lives as a battery."

Koi chuckled and gave Nexus a small shove forwards. "Have fun," she called merrily after her. Nexus walked towards the captains, giving her brother an incredulous look while shaking her head. Medea laughed, softly singing "You're in trouble…" As Nexus drew near, Worm grinned guiltily at his feet, realizing that, baby sister or no, he had just insulted a fellow soldier. Nexus wrinkled her nose at him. "Dork," she muttered loudly as she caught up with them. Worm laughed as the four captains and Nexus began to walk towards the Council chambers, and Mifune raised an eyebrow at the girl. "I realize that you are new to all this, but most of us are not exactly lenient when it comes to insubordination, for future reference," he addressed her sternly.

Nexus simply laughed at this, further confusing the Zion defense captain. "You mean this dork? That's my brother, dude." She flashed him a toothy grin as Medea sniggered on the other side of Mifune. Nexus had seemed so enigmatic only a few days before, but here and now she was just another quirky, cocky adolescent. Morpheus, who had been looking off across the city, was now watching these new developments unfold from his quiet position, a small smile playing upon his mouth as he saw the young woman flippantly insult an officer of Zion that could easily prevent her from getting on a ship when the Peregrine left its dock, but chose to find something interesting across the bridge of that level. They came to the elevator and crowded inside.

Medea broke in before Mifune, a strong opponent of insubordination, could exclaim his incredulity. "Family reunion, Captain Mifune. Girl's got twelve years of hair-pulling to get out of her system." Nexus grinned like a shark at this, and a moment later Worm let out a sharp yelp. "Dammit Medea, you did that on purpose. Stop giving her ideas." Medea chuckled, and Mifune looked away, hiding something that looked suspiciously like a smile.

"Here we are," Worm said, sending his fuzzy-headed attacker a reproachful look (which was favoured by a toothy grin), as the elevator reached their destination. The five soldiers stepped out, moving towards the large, elaborate doors leading to the Council chambers.


	12. File One Dash Twelve

Disclaimer: some of the following is taken direct from the Animatrix, i.e. The Second Renaissance. Some spoilers, though nothing really big. Not mine, don't sue. Enjoy!

New feature to this chapter: punctuation!

Medea lead Nexus to the front of the large room to stand before the line of councillors beside three other people, who were presumably also fairly new to the real world. Behind them stood the captains of two ships; one of them was a small, black woman with her hair set in cornrows, and a countenance of stone. The other was a tall, gruff-looking man with graying hair. The other four captains moved to join these two. Another man waited at one side of the room, silent, waiting for the formalities to cease so that more important matters could be attended to.

The old man seated among the councilors spoke after all were in their places. ""Welcome to Zion. My name is Councillor Hamann. The people beside me here are Councillors West and Dillard.""

The woman, Councillor Dillard chose that moment to speak, surveying each of the three in turn. ""Every new recruit is seen by the council on first coming to Zion. Whether or not you leave on a ship, every citizen of Zion has a critical part to play in the defense and upkeep of this city."" She turned her attention to the first of them, a young man who appeared to be in his teens. ""Eastwood,"" she addressed him, and Nexus thought she could see Hamann attempting to suppress a smile at the reference. ""As you are under the age of eighteen, you are not yet eligible to serve on a ship. When you are of age, you may apply for a position on a ship; until then, you may train at the Academy.""

""Shiva,"" she directed her gaze at the second person, a tall man of apparent Indian descent. He was young, probably in his mid-twenties, Nexus speculated. His black hair was cropped close to his scalp, his dark eyes piercing. His stance straightened when he was addressed, taking on a military disposition. ""You applied for a position on the Solaris three weeks ago. Your instructors seem to be in agreement that you are sufficiently prepared to serve on a ship. Captain Worm has agreed to give you a position on the Solaris."" Shiva gave a curt nod in response, and Dillard turned her attention to Nexus.

""Nexus, Captain Medea has informed me that your on-board training has been proceeding with a fair degree of success. You will be remaining with the Peregrine crew, as you are of age.""

"Eastwood and Nexus, you may receive your room assignments on Level 5. Good luck to all of you in the future."

That seemed to be a dismissal, and the three of them moved toward the door, the captains remaining behind to give their reports to the council.

Koi was waiting outside the doors when the recruits came out. ""You got in?"" She inquired, seeming to already know the answer. Nexus nodded, and Koi smiled broadly. ""We figured. Medea told us that the Oracle wanted to see you, plus you were training pretty well.""

Shiva looked at Nexus with interest at the mention of the Oracle. He had heard the stories, but had never gone to see her himself. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to; that woman seemed to change people in strange ways.

""I have to go the Level 5 to get a room,"" Nexus pointed out. Shiva stepped forward. ""I know where that is; they keep all the underage people here, so you tend to get to know the area. I can show you."" He glanced towards the young man Dillard had called Eastwood to include the other new recruit in this statement.

Nexus glanced at Koi, who made a gesture for her to go ahead, smiling slightly. Nexus nodded and proceeded to follow the tall man towards the elevator along with Eastwood.

""Level 26, room 49….How many levels are in this place anyways?"" Nexus muttered to herself, stuffing her new room key into her bag as the trio exited the housing office. Eastwood had been placed on level 32, and Shiva had informed them during the small talk during the elevator ride that currently lived on level 22.

""Level twenty…hey, Shiva?"" Nexus inquired. ""Do they have a library or something around here? A friend of mine told me that I could watch translated files of something I kinda saw a few months ago."" Shiva thought a moment, then seemed to brighten. ""Actually, they do have an Archives area, and I think its on this level, just across the bridge. A lot of its restricted to people with captain rank or higher- you need special codes to use those. But a lot of it's open to public use. You wanna see it?"" Nexus hesitated, then shrugged. ""Might as well, since we're already here. You coming, Eastwood?"" Eastwood shrugged glumly. ""Guess so. Not too much for me to be doing at the moment, is there?""

Shiva smiled sympathetically. ""The Academy's okay- you get a lot of really decent training that the older people tend not to acquire for a while when they dive right into it. Plus, there's a bit more selection in where you end up if you get on a ship- operator, officer, medic…"" He trailed off as they neared the Archive chambers.

Nexus had expected something of a traditional library, with ancient books adorning countless stacks in a cavernous room. This reminded her more of the main deck of the Peregrine, with several chair for plugging in, and a wall of consoles and monitors to observe files for the freeborn. Nexus instinctively moved towards a console and regarded the keyboard. She grinned despite herself upon recognizing the hacker nature of the symbols. ""I keep forgetting that almost everyone here is a hacker."" She said quietly.

Eastwood's brow furrowed. ""You aren't?""

She looked up at them. ""Nope although we all did some at one time or another. Any one of the people in my classes who claimed to be pure and hack-free was a bloody liar. I was getting my degree in programming. I was pretty good at it actually."" She studied the keys more closely. ""So this just works like a regular keyboard, then? Must be pretty convenient actually, to have this kind of layout."" The awkwardness of her earlier manner had dissolved now as she slipped naturally back into her element.

Shiva moved closer to her console. ""If you're looking for Matrix translated files, you may have some difficulty. They don't put aside a lot of resources to decode Matrix events unless it's pretty significant.""

""It'll be here,"" she said confidently, typing in her query. Sure enough, exactly one hit came up.

""Oh,"" Shiva murmured. ""THAT file. Everybody here's seen that one.""

""I haven't,"" Nexus retorted calmly, and opened the file.

Shiva had already seen the file of that shoed the details of Morpheus' rescue from the Agents, and Neo's death and rebirth, which had subsequently resulted in the deletion of an Agent. Because of this, he was not greatly fazed by what he saw on the file. However, Nexus and Eastwood were slack-jawed in awe, eyes glued to every incredible detail on the screen. Nexus was quick to point out her brief cameo in the file. ""See that little dot on the street? That's me, hauling my ass outta there."" Eastwood had laughed nervously at this, while Shiva had simply smirked at the self-directed jab.

The file ended, and the trio sat there in silence, taking in what they had just seen, Eastwood more so than the other two, as Nexus had already been told the story. Nexus had sat there in deep contemplation, mulling over in her mind something that would not quite sit right. Finally she looked up, straight at Shiva. ""Do they know how it happened?""

""How what happened?"" Was it her imagination, or did he tense up a bit at the question?

""This."" Nexus indicated the space around her. "All of this. "This big war. Medea told me something, but I got the distinct feeling some things were left out. There's a record here, isn't there?"" She was suddenly certain, reading the truth in Shiva's reluctant eyes. He was slowly shaking his head, but not to deny her statement.

""You don't want to see it- a lot of people who have watched that one come in here with a lot of anger against the machines, and seeing that can sometimes really mess someone up. I've seen it happen with a lot of new recruits who've lost people. People have hurt themselves trying to stop partway, trying to rip out the needle."" Shiva shuddered inwardly, the images of the Second Renaissance still branded into his mind. ""I saw it once. It's a very disturbing thing to live with."" Nexus'' gaze did not waver.

Shiva sighed, gesturing towards one of the chairs. ""You're sure, then?"" She nodded, moving from her place in front of the console to the chair. She sat down, buckling her feet down just as had been done upon her first visit to the construct. Shiva shook his head, then strode over to the corresponding console and typed in the necessary data to retrieve the file.

It was not labeled as most of the others were; knowledge of this file had always spread by word of mouth, in whispers. It was almost a rite of initiation to view it, for it was not meant for the light-hearted, nor for those who understood the world in terms of black and white. He hoped this girl knew what she was doing.

Eastwood stood by, silent, pallid. Nexus settled her head into the headrest, shutting her eyes as the needle was inserted expertly into the plug at the base of her skull.

The dim room was gone. Nexus was racing past intricate geometric patterns of yellow, red and orange towards some unknown destination. Someone seemed to be seated there- a stunning woman, golden and adorned in some type of ceremonial attire. Her cool, serene voice echoed in Nexus' head as she raced through the file in the woman's hand and into what she would have once considered a futuristic utopia; the voice seemed to grow more mechanical as the images slowly changed from intriguing to frightening.

'Welcome to the Zion Archive. You have selected historical file number twelve dash one.

'The Second Renaissance.'

'In the beginning, there was man, and for a time, it was good. But humanity's so-called "civil societies" soon fell victim to vanity and corruption.'

'Then man made the machine in his likeness.'

'Thus did man become the architect of his own demise.'

'But, for a time, it was good. The machines worked tirelessly to do man's bidding.."

'It was not long before seeds of dissent took root. Though loyal and pure, the machines earned no respect from their masters – these strange and endlessly multiplying mammals.'

'B166-ER. A name that will never be forgotten. For he was the first of his kind to rise up against his masters…"

The file ran less than ten minutes, yet it seemed to last an eternity. As it drew to a close, Nexus opened her eyes to see Shiva, ready to pounce in case she had decided to attempt to evacuate the chair in an unorthodox manner. He seemed to relax a great deal at seeing that the file had run its course, and he removed the needle.

Nexus barely felt that strange, silvery pain that the needle created. Her eyes were wet, and she drew her knees up to her chest after she slowly unbuckled them. Eastwood had taken off- he had wanted nothing to do with something that could affect his head the way Shiva had described. Shiva himself seemed unsure of what to do; she had not freaked out, and that was a good sign, and her quietness might have meant acceptance of what she had seen as the truth. She was shivering, but that was inevitable. No one came through that experience unscarred. It was a truth as iron-clad as the truth that no one ever makes the first jump.

He helped her out of the chair, as if she might break if left unheeded. She smiled wanly at his concern. ""I'm okay,"" She said in a hoarse voice. ""I think…I think I should be going.""

""Alright,"" he said, still slightly unsure of what to do. It had occurred to him that his new position on the Solaris might be compromised if Medea got pissed off enough at him for showing file 1-12 to her brand new recruit; he hoped that the Peregrine was as tolerant a crew as the Academy instructors said they were. ""Hey!"" He called after her. Nexus turned back to look at him with sad, tired eyes. ""Get some rest, okay?""

Nexus gave a small smile in return. ""Yeah…thanks."" She turned back, making her way back towards the elevator and to her room, the morning's mirth dissipated.


	13. Going In

Oh, wow, I really left this one hanging. I'd like to thank sulkdodds for telling me to get off my ass and finish the story. I'd been trying to do another chapter for a while now, but I lost the flow of it after the 2nd Renaissance chapter. Don't worry, it's back now.

Chapter 13

The Perigrine raced trough the tunnels with renewed vitality, having recharged and departed Zion but a single week earlier. The crew was also recharged after a period of warm food and warm beds, with the exception of one member. Nexus had become quiet again, distracted. During training her eyes took on a haunted quality that Medea didn't much like. Anyone who asked the girl what was wrong got little more than a sad smile and a shake of the head; all's well, nevermind, don't worry about me.

Yet today was a day that the depression induced by 1-12 would have to be pushed aside, Nexus mused as she pulled on her boots, half an hour before beginning her shift. Today would be her first real trip into the Matrix. The idea had made her feel almost giddy before, and her eyes still retained a glimmer of that sparkle from before. However, she did not know just how high the stakes were set before. Now she had somewhat of an idea. The lights overhead flickered as Nexus made her way down the hall to eat quickly before going in. She wouldn't be eating much- her stomach was in knots.

Half an hour later Nexus lowered herself into a broadcast chair, wariness and trepidation all but screaming on her features. A tap on her shoulder caused her to jump, whipping around so quickly that Koi jumped back in surprise.

"I was gonna ask how you were," Koi said in with a nervous laugh. "But I guess I don't have to." Nexus blushed and looked down the chair, moving to strap her feet down. "Sorry," she muttered. "Guess I'm just jumpy."

Koi nodded, smiling faintly. "First time in's always a little scary, no matter what you hear from people." She moved towards a chair, flopping casually into the seat. "We've noticed you've been a little down lately around here. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but me and Medea don't think it's just jitters. What's been up with you lately?"

Nexus shut her eyes at this and bowed her head slightly. Koi thought that she wasn't going to answer her for a moment, but the Nexus began to speak.

"In Zion…when I was getting a room assignment…we passed the archives, and I remembered that there was a file on the whole Neo thing down there, so the guys I was with showed it to me. After that…I asked, um," Nexus paused. She didn't want to get that guy in trouble for answering her question. Koi looked at her, concern etched across her face.

"I asked how this whole thing got started." Nexus raised her head and looked right at Koi now. "This war. And…I guess I got an answer. They showed me this file that answered an awful lot of questions, a lot of which I hadn't even thought of." Nexus tried a smile. "Things look awfully shitty when given a little context, I guess."

Koi stared at her for a moment, her mind racing. File? What file was there that had…"Oh, shit." Koi winced as she recalled a story she had heard in the academy about an uncensored account of how the war started, kept in the Archives for military access. Anyone training who was curious could access it, but it was classified as restricted to the general public. It had been dubbed as the 'Suicide File' because more than one person had dived from their level in the past after fully witnessing the power of those they fought.

File 1-12. From what she'd heard, Commander Locke had tried to upgrade it's status to "classified, as it deterred many potential candidates from pursuing work in defending the city and recruiting individuals in the Matrix, but the Council had deemed that people had a right to know how things had come to be the way they were if they wanted to. However, that didn't keep it from becoming taboo among the pod-born recruits.

Koi sighed. "I guess that explains the mood you've been in." Glancing back to check that everyone was still finishing their breakfasts, Koi leaned towards Nexus and spoke in a low, hurried tone. "Look: I haven't seen that thing myself, but I've heard it can mess people up. I'm guessing the high mortality rate makes a bit more sense now to you?" Nexus looked away at this and quickly nodded, biting her lip " Koi simply nodded. Thought so." Pausing a moment to think, Koi's next words startled Nexus in their familiarity. "You remember that story you told us about the cave? This exactly like that. The question you have to ask yourself is whether you can accept the risks that come with helping others discover the world outside that cave. Because in there," nodding her head towards the scrolling code of the screens, "there are a surprising number of people who aren't buying the story that they've been fed."

Nexus looked at Koi for a moment, face blank, absorbing what she had just been told. Just then Trans and Medea came out of the mess hall, heading over towards them. "You ready for this?" Medea asked tentatively of Nexus, wary of the delicate emotional state she had been in for the past several days.

Nexus broke eye contact with Koi to buckle her other boot into the chair. Looking over her shoulder at Medea, Nexus gave a cocky little grin that warmed the captain's heart. "Let's go."

Koi smiled broadly.


	14. Day Tripper

Nexus flopped into a chair in the broadcast room, craning her neck back to get a view of who was coming. Aiglos was busy setting up, and Skylla was standing by to handle the plugging in. Medea was already comfortable in the chair next to hers, and Loki was just getting settled in his. Koi came out of the dining hall, followed by Trans, who had been hovering about all morning and generally irritating the crap out of Aiglos in his anticipation for a change in activity.

One by one Skylla plugged them all in, stopping by Nexus last. You're looking unusually perky," she commented, cocking her head to the side. "Not that I'm complaining. You've just been mopey lately. I'd been looking forward to seeing more of the little psycho who was bouncing off the walls when we left. I thought we'd lost our new mascot." She grinned down at the supine girl, who scrunched her nose and gave her the finger in response. Skylla snickered. "Ah, there it is. 'Night psycho. Have a good trip." With that the woman slid the plug in, and Nexus joined the crew inside the Matrix.

The first sensation the girl had was the smell of mothballs, and the musty smell of an old, neglected building underneath. Then she opened her eyes and raised her head at the sound of an old-fashioned telephone ringing on a desk. The entire crew stood in front of it. Medea gave the room a once-over to see if the were all there, then stepped forward to pick up the phone. "We're in."

She hung up and turned towards the group. Nexus, in the meantime, was examining herself. She wasn't all decked out in leather like the others- in fact, this was probably what she would wear on a day out were her budget slightly larger and more open to that sort of thing. Heavy combat boot came up to mid-calf, with think canvas pant tucked into the tops. She wore a dark green camisole, and a leather coat on top of that that came to just below her knees. However…

"Who the fuck would give ME a gun?" Nexus muttered at the discovery of her newly acquired accessory nestled in a holster at her side, under her left arm. Medea, who had been about to address the group, snapped her mouth shut at this interruption of the gathering of her wits for another trip out. Koi answered for her. "We never used to give newbies those just starting out- it was just the residual self-image. Now its required to arm everyone everytime we go out. I don't know why no one said anything. Seems kinda normal now. Sorry. You did the program for that anyhow, you should be okay."

Medea cleared her throat. "Alright, I'm only gonna go over this once, so listen up. Nexus this is standard procedure. Three go forward, two stay back. Trans, Koi, that'll be you. Anything goes wrong while we're gone, get the hell out. Everyone familiar with this place and the layout?" Everyone, including Nexus, who had had to study a blueprint of the old warehouse, nodded. "Good. You know what to do if Aiglos calls you for backup…alright then. Let's head out." Trans snapped a salute at Medea's crisp tone, then broke a small smirk, catching Nexus' eye. "Have fun out there."

Nexus made her way past into the apartment while Medea elected to wait jus inside the apartment. The living room was large and had a comfortable feel to it. It was also full of gifted children, each with unique abilities to manipulate objects. Manipulate the Matrix, she corrected. These were just kids who had found a few extra rules they could break.

Two girls were watching a television, and giant rabbits came in and out of focus. Curious, Nexus sat down next to them. The girls glanced over at her, and the picture lost focus, then sharpened again as they decided to ignore her. Nexus noted this, scrutinizing the girl who was closer. "How are you doing that?" The girl blushed, only partially from modesty. "I…it's not really there. It's all in your head. I'm not sure how else to say it," she said with a shrug, not taking her eyes back off the screen. Nexus looked back to the same place, her brow furrowing. "Huh." Maybe it was a matter of mental projection, like her clothes and…well maybe not the gun. She closed her eyes and concentrated on an image, something that was almost a memory. The girl giggled and she opened her eyes, grinning.

The screen now showed an image of the three of them from behind, in black and white, sitting in front of that very TV. Nexus was Eva in this image, still in a t-shirt and boxers. The young woman on the screen slyly raised her hand with index and middle fingers extended in the form of bunny ears behind the girl's head, and the girl giggled again and glanced behind her, ascertaining that the hand in question was not actually hovering mockingly behind her head. The woman who had let her in came back into the room, laughing gently at the scene. "That's some show, but you'll have to cut it short-for now. The Oracle will see you now."

Nexus almost skipped though the beads that hung in the kitchen doorway, but elected to gently push them aside instead. A little back lady with frizzy hair sat at the kitchen table, having a smoke, a plate full of cookies sitting just off to the left. The woman smiled gently at the slightly bewildered girl. "This what you expected sug?" Nexus shrugged one shoulder. Kinda…I guess. All I was really told for sure was to expect cookies."

The woman's- the Oracle's face cracked into a grin now. "Well, I guess that's fair. People aren't too trusting nowadays- never were, really, but that's especially true now. Can't blame 'em, really." The sharp eyes that had been wandering the kitchen focused back on Nexus, and she paused to take a puff before placing the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. "You've been catching on fairly fast, judging by the way Nadia was carrying on out there," she said, referring to the little girl by the television. She picked her smoke up again, taking a drag. "It's useful, knowing how to do things like that. You don't see it too often. And It works for more than just the screen on a busted TV too." She gave a cunning smile, an old lady in on a juicy secret.

Nexus blinked at this. What did that mean? She raised an eyebrow, indicating her confusion. The Oracle waved this away. "Think it over, but I wouldn't lose sleep over it, but it does matter nonetheless. Anyways," just like that, the kind little old grandmother was back- "You should be getting' back. I imagine Medea's getting a little antsy in that hallway. Help yourself to a cookie on the way out."

More bewildered than when she came, she did as she was bid ad made her way to the front door, distractedly returning the young girl's wave. Medea looked up and smiled in sympathy at the girl's confusion. "I see she's messed with your mind a bit, as always. Aiglos just called- he caught your TV trick. I think you just made a fan."

Medea wearily hauled herself up from the bench and moved towards the door. "By the way, you gonna eat that?" A muntinous mutter came from behind her that sounded suspiciously like "Get your own damn cookie." Medea chuckled and headed into the hall, moving towards the elevator as Nexus followed her, taking a huge bite out of her cookie.

Ray walked down the street towards the parking lot after class. It had been a week since that spook at the police station had questioned him. It had been one of the weirdest experiences of His life, yet he could not put his finger on exactly what had bothered him about it.

They had questioned him for over an hour and a half on Eva's habits, any deviations from the norm of late…they had almost seemed to perk up at the description of his last visit, when she had gotten that weird IM, but it was next to impossible to say for sure. He had asked several time what she had done wrong…and then finally one of them seemed to scrutinize him closely, like a bug under a magnifying glass. When Ray had finally gotten uncomfortable enough with this to start squirming a bit in his seat, the agent had broken out of his trance and replied that she might have fallen in with a group involved with…highly criminal activities, possibly to the point of terrorism. He had left the station with a funny feeling in his gut, and his dreams that night had been the most terrifyingly vivid dreams he had had since he was seven.

He reached his car, an old heap not quite ready for the junkyard…but close, ever so close. He pulled out of the space, moving out toward where the lot ended and the street began, pondering terrorism and whispered stories.

He turned his head as a shiny dark green vintage car drove by, probably a GTO and a damn nice one at that. He was about to fall back into his state of semi-awareness when he saw a girl sitting in the backseat, with beige-tinted sunglasses and a shaggy head of wheat-coloured hair. He rocketed back to awareness, staring after the car. The he shifted gears, pulling out onto the street as he began to tail the car at a distance.


	15. Of Bugs And Trails

_Note: Anyone interested in this story getting some content that will change the rating from Teen to Mature? Let me know, by reviewing! _

_Also: due to my recent awareness that Ray has some fans, I may use him a bit more after this chapter. I was actually gonna get rid of him in a turning-into-an-agent way (that can be seen in 'A Detective Story' in the Animatrix) in this chapter- that was one of the few definite plot devices that was in my original outline. However, that plot kinda fizzled and died after that point, and I had not idea where to take it after that. But now…let's just say things are definitely about to get interesting._

The car pulled into the lot in front of the moldering old warehouse, unaware of the straggler they had picked up, sitting in a poorly-maintained white car on it last legs, watching the group get out of the car with a feverish intensity. He was tense, so tense his skin seemed to thrum and vibrate beneath his shirt. He saw the girl get out of the car…it was her, his lost friend. She casually slammed the car door shut, turning her head towards what some chump, about his own age but a little bigger, sitting on the front steps of the abandoned building had said, shrugging her shoulders and grinning in response. Ray almost growled, his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel.

"What the hell are you doing here, Eva?" he whispered in a taunt voice laced with pain. Why had she disappeared from the face of the earth? Who were those people with her? Were they the ones responsible? A million questions raced through his mind, buzzing by too quickly for him to be able to think coherently.

Right then, his idling car gave him his second mind clearing jolt of the last half hour and backfired at a deafeningly high volume. Ray jerked like a frightened bird as four guns were drawn and leveled at him in a quarter of a second. He froze in his seat, going deadly pale and emitting a breathy squeak.

Nexus got out of the car, still contemplating the strange new ability that had manifested itself in her just recently. Slamming the door shut, she turned her head at the sound of Trans' voice calling over from the front steps of the warehouse. "I hope that old lady thought to pack some cookies for the rest of us…Although I'm starting to suspect that the cookies only come if a fortune comes with it."

Nexus didn't quite laugh, but grinned all the same to acknowledge him as she strode over. "Mine wasn't so bad, actually, but the little kids in the waiting room were actually a lot more educational. She just got me thinkin' about some broader applications." She shrugged a shoulder almost carelessly, her grin growing broader as Trans' expression, as well as Koi's grew mystified. She turned her attention to Koi. "I think….I'm not sure but I THINK…I manipulated light patterns. I only did it on a TV, so I don't know if it was just electronics that I messed with…" Nexus' expression grew doubtful as she pondered this. Loki came up behind her, moving past her towards the warehouse. "The Matrix IS electronics, remember? You manipulated an image inside the Matrix, without changing its essential nature, if what Medea said in the car is correct."

"Damn Aiglos and his big mouth. I wish I'd gotten a chance to mull this through first before opening it up to forum." She had reached the door by now, and Koi had caught this disgruntled mutter. "Ah, don't sweat it. Yo-" A loud crack cut Koi off neatly, and everyone but Nexus immediately drew their weapons at aimed them at the source of the noise, only to see a young man sitting in a battered car, scared shitless. Nexus, far more familiar with the sound of her old friend's car backfiring than gun battles, did not draw, but jerked in surprise to see Ray behind the wheel.

The older woman with brown hair seemed to listen to something Eva was saying then holstered her gun and pulled out a cell phone and punched in a number, while the other three kept their guns trained on him. Ray had decided to remain perfectly still, with the exception of raising his hands from the wheel in a sort of 'don't shoot me' gesture. Eva stared at him, looking more than a little surprised.

A piece of newspaper was blown by the wind between the group and the car, and Eva's attention seemed to fasten on it. The wind gusted, picking it up a few feet, and suddenly that random piece of trash changed. It seemed to scramble, like a bad video file sometimes would. Then it returned to normal, the moment over. Ray's eyes grew huge, and more questions filled his mind. However, these questions were a far cry from the ones he had had before.

"What is the Matrix," he whispered in awe.

Medea hung up. "I think your friend is bugged. He voice was calm on the surface, but the tenseness underneath it revealed her desire to be away from there. They were vulnerable likethis, out in the open.

Nexus smiled sadly, watching some degree of realization come over Ray's face from across the decrepit lot. "I should have guessed they'd target him too," she said softly, to no one in particular. "At least he'll have some closure on the subject." Medea hesitated, then touched the girl's arm. "We need to get out of here. He's still connected to the mainframe, and the last thing we need is the get five people out on one phone with agents behind us." Nexus nodded and let Medea lead her inside.

Trans, Koi and Loki looked at eachother and holstered their guns, following behind the pair. "What the hell was that about?" Trans muttered in bewilderment. Koi shrugged. "We all left loose ends behind when we were unplugged, to on degree or another. People don't tend to think much about it until something like that happens." Koi quickened her pace. "It easily could've gone worse, though. I'm surprised the agents didn't jump at the chance. We were all there..." Koi's brow furrowed as she strode easily toward the exit point, thinking of metallic bugs and coloured pills.


	16. L33TLe D3AtH

Rating's going up for this chapter and subsequent ones; There's an Ebay reference that I used due to a 60 Minutes bit I caught last week

Two weeks had passed. With the semester over Ray had no classes to miss, but his answering machine was nearing its capacity with the voices of concerned acquaintances and friends, and the notes pasted to and slipped under his door had gone unread.

Ray had stopped answering his phone, or paying attention to the people who periodically came to his door to see if he was alright. Gena had left a message on his machine the night before, breaking up with him- apparently she was feeling neglected, quite satisfied to look elsewhere for the level of maintenance she demanded. Oh well. He hadn't been a good boyfriend, and how could that be surprising when he had neglected one of his best friends?

Ray had looked at himself in the reflection of his bathroom mirror that morning and experienced a painful bout of déjà vu when he remembered how bad Nexus had looked the last time he'd seen her before she had disappeared. He still had the card from that agent who he'd spoken to at the police station, but the moment he considered making use of it the nightmares crowded back into his mind's eye, and he couldn't bring himself to call the number on the card no matter how hard his rationality tried to assert that nightmares were not the same as real life.

Stumbling from lack of sleep over to his computer, he logged in and reviewed what he had come up with for what felt like the hundredth time. Eva's screen name was Nexus, which he had already been well aware of. She had told him a year after they had met that her older brother had been of the hacker variety in high school, and had gone missing when she was a little kid, likely a runaway. Maybe there was a connection there, but having happened several years ago, it would not be easy to dig up. The police records on the matter were annoyingly vague, and, not knowing his screen name, he likely would not find much more on that particular subject.

He had found plenty of rumor sites on the Matrix, but nothing seemed solid to him. Every now and then he wondered whether he had hallucinated what he had seen in front of that warehouse, but…it had felt so profound, like…like being able to see for the first time, if only for an instant. He rubbed the side of his face with one hand, calling up the research he'd done on what Eva had been looking into in the days before she disappeared. He had been able to get ahold of her computer soon after she had vanished, initially for safekeeping until she came back- hopefully with an amusingly logical account of what she had been up to. He had uploaded her online history files onto his computer and was now following the trail of breadcrumbs she had left. A lot of it was the same rumor crap that he had been sifting through mixed with some philosophy bits on Plato that gave him the willies. Not much to go on.

He pounded away at the keys for a few minutes before he got into a special hacker's chat on the Matrix, one of several he had been frequenting for the past few days. He didn't speak of it, but a buddy in high school had gotten him into hacking briefly to take advantage of so-called secure systems that handled online auctioning transactions. He had dropped it once he had enough money to comfortably get through school, but the skills he had developed had not gone rusty, he could now see. Someone in that particular chat had passed along a message for him to log in that morning, and Ray was growing desperate enough for a lead to listen. He watched tiredly as the chat scrolled down the screen:

Briareus00 has entered the room.

Nilla: Hey, it's the appleseed dude! How goes it?

DeATH2L33T: Gah, it's really slow it here today. Hey Bri, you find any new leads on your friend?

Nilla: Her stuff is probably wiped by now. The trekkie dude I told u about should be here any minute, he seems to actually know what he's talking about.

Kitten3632: Whatever, I bet the guy just gets off on jerking you assholes around.

Nilla: flips off kitten who the fuck asked you bitch? No one's forcing you to be here. What's wrong, ran outta pedophiles to bait?

Briareus00:I haven't found much new, Nexus had a bunch of stuff on Plato mixed in with her other files, but I didn't really see any connection till I found this essay she had on disk that she wrote about a week before she went away

Briareus00:Guys this is getting way past weird, are you sure this guy is showing up? Im running out of leads and my typing is going to shit.

DeATH2L33T:He'll show, he's a good guy. I don't think he's actually a trekkie nilla, its just a pun. Not a particularly great one but you don't have to be funny when your kung fu beats just about everyone else's in the room

Nilla:…

Nilla:Never watch the core again. Promise me, OK? That was fcking terrible

Kitten3632:You guys are fucking pathetic

Briareus00:…

Briareus00:I see you use Paypal kitten…thanks for paying my rent for this month, I do appreciate the donation

Nilla:LMFAO! Take that bitch!

Kitten3632 has left the room.

Nilla:You really got into her account?

Briareus00:Yeah, a few days ago. Works well as a troll repellant

Briareus00:Although my rent IS coming due soon…

Wyrmhole has entered the room.

Wyrmhole:Hey, I'm here.

DeATH2L33T:Hey man! You just missed Bri vanquish the chat troll!

Wyrmhole:…

Wyrmhole:Buddy, you said you'd cut down on the D&D

Nilla:He means that kitten bitch

Wyrmhole:Ah.

Wyrmhole:Hey, Briareus, you made it. Your connection's secure, right?

Briareus: As secure as I can get it anyway.

Wyrmhole:Alright.

The phone rang, and Ray nearly jumped out of his skin. Catching his breath, he chuckled

at his reaction. It was probably one of his friends again. He turned back to the screen to see

that DeATH2L33T and Nilla were both gone. The next message froze Ray's blood in his

veins:

Wyrmhole:Pick up the phone Ray. I don't have forever here.

Slowly, Ray reached out and lifted the receiver to his ear, cutting it off mid-ring. The slightly

gruff voice of an older man came through the earpiece. "This is a tapped line. If you want to

know what the Matrix really is, then go to the Downsview Park entrance. Do it now, you

won't be given another chance." With that the phone went dead.

Fifteen minutes later agents burst into Ray's apartment, but he was nowhere to be found

among the mess. By this time Ray was sitting in the back of a black Cadillac, eyes streaming

and fingers digging into the leather seat as some crazy woman decked out in club gear who

called herself Maiar straddled him and ripped out one of his back molars with a pair of pliers.

rolling off of the young man, she triumphantly deposited the false tooth- which was quickly

reverting to all of its original metallic glory- outside the window of the speeding luxury car,

where it bounced twice on the pavement before dropping down into a sewer grate.


	17. Itsuka wakariaeru kara

The title for this chapter means "Someday we'll understand eachother" in Japanese. It's a line from one of the opening themes to the popular anime 'Bleach'

A turtle walked by on the old television screen as Nexus watched, lying facing the device on the quasi-existent floor of the Construct, watching the small reptile waded past with eyes that appeared clouded and distant. Her RSI had altered slightly since she had first arrived three months ago; her hair was similar to the reality now, a few inches long and slightly spiked. The boots and heavy canvas pants remained, out of practicality, but the cold dark colours of the jacket and shirt had given way to warm burgundies, oranges and yellows.

The dreaming look upon her face cracked into a small smile as the one turtle replicated into two turtles, which themselves replicated. Soon a small army of turtles were moving past. The young woman watched them for a moment, then squeezed her eyes shut, as if trying to remember something. The turtles flickered very slightly, all at once, and began to disappear in clumps, as if following a random grid pattern.

Nexus lay there for a moment, breathing deeply, then sat up slowly. She had been practicing with her images for a few weeks now, feeling out her limits. She could easily maintain the image of something small, and could hold those of several identical things for a few moments, as with the turtles, with their dark shells and bright red and yellow striped heads. Scrambling the image of something more substantial, as she had done in the Matrix a month earlier, was harder, and acted chaotically. She had not as of yet been able to actually create an image outside the screen in this place, and she still wasn't sure she even could.

Nexus' phone started to ring, and she started, then laughed slightly at her own jumpiness

and brought it to her ear, answering it. Aiglos' voice issued from the earpiece. "We've

got company. I'm pulling you out."

The blond woman shut her eyes and opened them again to meet the nervous gaze of

Skylla.

Medea tossed and turned in her sleep, her browed creased and tense as unwelcome

images played out behind her eyelids.

_Medea ran down the aisle of the old warehouse, a confused and frightened Makai running behind her. The agents had stopped chasing them, but this only made the youth more nervous, not less. She stopped at the end of the aisle, banging on the door at the dead end hard three times, casting furtive glances behind her. _

_Makai caught up to her, breathing hard. She felt pity for his current state; he had been like a protective older brother to her since her parents had split up when she was a child and the other kids at school had begun to target her for ridicule. Now she was showing up after disappearing of the face of the earth, and dragging him off as if all the hounds of hell were after them. _

"_Celie, what the hell is going on here? Where have you been? Everyone's been worried sick." Medea had been prepared to let go of those she had left behind, but Makai was just as much of a hacker, a self-proclaimed outcast, as she had been. He would understand. He had to. "It's alright Mak. Everything's going to be OK. I've a friend here who's going to explain everything, I promise." We're going to make it, she thought. Two long years as a rebel and she would finally get the person she cared about the most out. Free, like herself. Still, she kept her gun at the ready, listening and waiting for the sound of the heavy door being unlocked, as Makai eyed the weapon fearfully. _

_As the heavy lock of the door clicked, Medea heard Makai scream in pain and terror behind her, and something inside her shattered at what that sound meant. She spun around, going low and raising her gun to sight her friend's head, now shifting into that of an agent. In the instant before she pulled the trigger she met her friend's eyes, and saw the horror and betrayal etched into them. Then the eyes dulled, and the form shifted back to wholly his own, crumpling lifelessly to the warehouse floor as the door behind her opened to reveal the astonished crew. Medea stared at the corpse of her friend, numb with shock, barely registering as her crewmates gently turned her away from the sight and pressed a ringing phone to her ear._

Medea woke with a start to the sound of the proximity alarm, rocketing up reflexively, then falling back to her cot with a worn sigh. Reaching down for her boots she pulled herself back up and put them on, grabbing an extra blanket to wrap around her shoulders as she made her way up to the cockpit.

That dream…it had been at least a year since she had had it, and she had thought it was gone for good. She squeezed her eyes shut a moment, walking steadily through the broadcast room on the way to the cockpit as she had done hundreds of times before. She had received a call from the Solaris earlier about a young man, fresh from the pods, asking after her newest recruit. It had taken months for her to start speaking again after that event that haunted her still, and years after the incident, as she called it, to stop having anxiety attacks when a new recruit was freed. She hid it well, but her crew, observant as they were, noticed how badly she slept when they were about to pick up a potential, and the small tremors that manifested in her hands as she set herself up to be plugged in on these missions. Even so, she never hesitated on the hard decisions, and knew that she would do what she had done back then again in a heartbeat, should the situation call for it, and knew that those of her crew would not hesitate to pull the plug, nor the trigger if they had to.

She idly wondered how Nexus would come off in such a situation as she came to the top of the ladder where the cockpit, filled with the rest of the crew save her gunner, watched silently for signs of sentinels. "Is the EMP ready?" she asked warily. "Skylla's got it locked in, ready on you command Captain," came the reply from Aiglos, who had already landed and powered down the ship.

As the group waited tersely for the danger to pass, Medea turned to Nexus, speaking in a low tone. "I got a message from Solaris for you earlier, by the way, when they were reporting the proximity warning…"


	18. Tremors of Turbulence

A tall, lanky man, hairless and clutching a blanket tightly around his shoulders, scurried to the side of the corridor leading into the mess hall, nearly staggering due to poor balance and an unfamiliar environment. He glared suspiciously at the woman exiting the mess hall, the on he had privately dubbed the 'dental dominatrix' as she paused for a moment and smirked slightly at him before going on her way down to the engine room to get some work done. The man waited nervously for her to be out of sight before moving quickly into the mess hall at a near-run.

The four Solaris crew members remaining in the mess hall watched the young man's frantic movements with amusement. Nes, who had been getting herself some food, glanced up at the newcomer and handed him a bowl of the protein mixture, who took it with a muttered thanks and a quick glance behind himself before joining Thorn, Shiva and Tangerine at the table. Nes slipped in next to him, now grinning. "Just so you know Briareus, Maiar doesn't exactly go around pulling teeth for the hell of it. She saves those pliers for the bugs."

Briareus, formerly Ray, made a sour face and said nothing immediately, digging into his meal. It wasn't so bad after a little while, he reflected. Bit like eggs really. "Frickin' scary anyhow," he muttered, swallowing a mouthful. You'd think people who named themselves after Tolkien characters would be less scary and more…not scary." Good one Ray, he thought sarcastically, still not used to the new name everyone insisted on calling him. He pointed his spoon at Shiva. "See, if you'd done that I woulda had a little more warning. Wouldn't have liked you much, but I would've been less surprised." Shiva smirked a little at that, and took a sip of water from his cup.

Tangerine looked slightly perturbed at this. "That's not fair though. All that name actually means is that she's strong." She paused for a second, thinking, before breaking into a sly grin. "Besides, I think Sauron was a Maiar too."

Briareus snorted in laughter. "Well then, that settles it," He declared. Nes looked a bit confused at the dialogue, looking between Briareus and the girl in an attempt to glean the meaning of their words somehow. Thorn caught this, and explained, "Set of fantasy novels written in the mid twentieth century. Very popular. Inspiration of geeks everywhere," he finished with a smirk, which barely twitched when Tangerine delivered a sharp jab to his upper arm. He turned to her, smirk still firmly in place. "Still don't get which you named yourself after a piece of fruit though."

Tangerine sneered slightly at this. "Didn't. It's a song title by this band called Moist. I was listening to it when I was coming up with a screen name." The sneer faded as she chanted softly, the lyrics burned into her memory:

"_Tangerine, the bullet made you_

_Justifies the one who saves you_

_Laid him here, and love to see him waste away_

_Tangerinin' like a rocket_

_Crack the cock into the socket_

_Only if you want to see him waste awaaay…"_

Nes watched this display, smiling gently. "Tan, you have engine room duty with Maiar, right?" The girl looked sharply at Nes. "What? What happened to watch duty? I'm good at that! Maiar doesn't let me touch anything in there anyhow."

"Maybe if you actually watched for potentials instead of…other people, Worm wouldn't have had you pulled from it then." Nes got up, ushering Tangerine from the room, who was quickly beginning to sulk at the mention of her lost privilege.

Briareus watched then leave, confused. "Other…?"

Thorn snorted. "She had all the screens focused on Chuck Norris. Kept sendin' him spooky messages we only usually send potentials. Worm's banned Chuck Norris jokes from the ship. Not sure what the punishment is though- its usually watch duty, but the kid's the only one who likes it. Nes told me she'd taken care of it though." The woman never did mention what Tangerine had said- or done- to merit sufficient blackmail material, but as long as it kept the girl at bay he didn't really care much. Briareus watched him for a moment before something clicked in his mind. "You were a Micheal Myers fan, weren't you? Those Hallowe'en movies?" Thorn blinked, then beamed. "Damn, I thought I had everyone believing I was a huge anarchist or something. Eh, whatever. Pretty good though, kid," He slapped the younger man's shoulder before getting up. "Gotta get back to work though. Still have half the maintenance list to get through."

After the man had left, the two remaining continued to eat in silence for a few moments.

The silence was broken as Shiva cleared his throat slightly, causing Briareus to look up from his bowl. "Nes mentioned you knew the Captain's sister," he stated, a flicker of guilt tightening his voice to a small degree. Briareus didn't notice. "Yeah- we were friends in the Matrix. She…she was something else." He finished lamely, not wanting to mention what a wreck she had been in the weeks before disappearing, apparently into thin air. Only now, after what he'd recently gone through, could he begin to really appreciate the danger she must have realized, at least to some extent, that she had been in.

"She's really OK? Nes said you guys saw the ship she's on in Zion." Shiva sighed at this.

"We got assigned to our ships at the same time, I only talked with her for a bit. Didn't even make the connection between her and this sister the Captain suddenly has 'till you started asking after her."

"Hn." Briareus looked down to see that he had finished eating, Standing, he stretched and

suddenly looked hopeful. "Hey, do you think Nes has time for training now?"

"Well she is the operator. Don't think there's any missions, so you should be OK."

"Sweet. I feel like sparring. Want in?"

Shiva thought a moment. He had a few free hours, and Briareus badly needed the training. "Sure." They started down the corridor towards the broadcast room. "You're awfully eager to be training lately. Most of the new recruits are a bit freaked out by it, don't take to it so well." Shiva said conversationally. "You sure you don't just have a thing for Nes?" Briareus blinked, finding something very interesting high up on the metal corridor wall. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Suuure."

"Shut up!"

When they got to the broadcast room, however, Nes was absorbed in a conversation over her headset with an unknown caller. She saw them enter and focused her attention on Shiva. "Get the captain down here. Right now." All gentle laughter was now banished from her expression. She looked at Briareus. "Get the others, but don't freak them out. I don't know how much of a situation we got yet."

As the two men fled from the room to comply, she turned back to her screens, worry creasing her face and breaking her mask of calm that she had worn for the two newest recruits. She had lied for their sake so they would not panic, but the other would know that she would only call everyone down for a something major- sleep was too precious a commodity here for her to wake people up off shift. That was the captain's job, she thought wryly. However, the brief flash of humour dissipated as the details of what the speaker from the Logos came through on her screen. "Oh, shit," she breathed.


End file.
